Self-organisation of coupled nonlinear oscillators through impurities

The effects of impurities introduced into a lattice of strongly coupled osc illators are studied. Contrary to our expectations, a single impurity can c ontrol the chaotic behavior of a long array of chaotic oscillators and brin g about complete synchronization. This effect appears to be independent of the length of the chain, obtaining self-organization for chains as long as 512 lattice sites. By appropriately introducing more that one impurity, if needed, longer chains of oscillators can be tamed.