Multioscillatory patterns in a hybrid semiconductor gas-discharge system

Abstract

A planar pattern forming semiconductor gas-discharge device is examined. While being driven with a stationary voltage, it generates patterns that contain domains oscillating with different frequencies. The multioscillatory pattern is formed in a sequence of bifurcations from the homogeneous stationary state. A nonlinear interaction between different parts of the pattern can be detected. It is suggested that the observed behavior is due to the coupling of processes in two nonlinear components, the gas-discharge gap and the semiconductor cathode fabricated from high resistance gallium arsenide.

Period doubling cascade in glow discharges: Local versus global differential conductivity

“…[2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13], a planar glow discharge layer with short length in the forward direction and wide lateral dimensions is coupled to a semiconductor layer with low conductivity. The whole structure is sandwiched between two planar electrodes to which a dc voltage U t is applied.…”

“…In comparison to the other systems, the glow discharge system has the advantage of particular convenient experimental handling and time scales [14]. In addition to structures familiar from other physical systems, glow discharges continue to exhibit new structures that might be specific for this system [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]. We will focus on the experiment in Ref.…”

“…An interesting series of experiments has been performed on such glow discharges with wide lateral extension [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13] where the formed patterns were explored very systematically. The observed structures (stripes, hexagons, spirals, spots, homogeneous oscillations, etc.)…”

Anode pattern formation in atmospheric pressure air glow discharges with water anode

“…1 The considerable amount of papers on this topic illustrates the interest in the plasma community for selforganization, which typically occurs in the anode or cathode layer. [2][3][4][5][6][7][8] According to Müller,9 patterns of spots occur if a bistable layer, characterized by an S-shaped voltage-current density characteristic, is in contact with a resistive medium. The resistive medium is necessary to stabilize a system of spots, i.e., to allow a potential difference at the electrode surface.…”

Electrical instability in a semiconductor gas discharge system

“…So called ''pure'' semi-insulating crystals that are obtained by this technique are known to have a high resistance at room temperature due to the compensation of residual impurities by deep electronic levels of defects, the so called EL2 centers [11,14]. The presence of these defects is believed to give rise to the N-type NDR of the material and, as a consequence, to oscillations in current when a dc voltage of a high enough magnitude is applied to a sample [17]. The effect is governed by the increase of the efficiency of trapping the carriers by centers, while their kinetic energy grows at strong electric fields.…”