CHAOTIC DYNAMICS IN AN INFINITE-DIMENSIONAL ELECTROMAGNETIC SYSTEM

The paper deals with bifurcation and chaos phenomena theoretically obs erved in a simple electromagnetic system consisting of a linear, disto rtionless transmission line connected to an active linear resistor (R < 0) at one end and to a pn-junction diode at the other end. The activ e resistor gives rise to the stretching phenomena and the diode the ba ck folding one; the combination of these two mechanisms may lead to ch aotic dynamics. The Poincare map of the ''backward voltage wave'' at p n-junction diode is obtained by solving a one dimensional nonlinear im plicit difference equation. For R < -R(c) (R(c) is the characteristic ''impedance'' of the line) the mapping is unimodal and the dynamics fo llow the Feigenbaum route to chaos [1]. The nonlinear implicit differe nce equation is solved numerically. Spatiotemporal chaos is observed i n the voltage and current waves. By replacing the pn-junction diode wi th a twin-pn junction diode circuit, the hopping mechanism is also met .