Spatio-temporal laser forcing on an oscillatory/excitable electrochemical system

The effect of spatially localized, time-periodic forcing on the Fe \ 1 M H2 SO4 system is studied experimentally within the oscillatory and excitable r egion. The electrode surface is perturbed locally or globally by a laser be am. The resulting response depends strongly on the period and phase of the external forcing. When periodic laser perturbations are applied to the exci table state, the resulting response is large excitations for a large forcin g period and pairs of small and large excitations for a small forcing perio d. During autonomous oscillations the response is entrained either complete ly or by combinations of autonomous and excitable peaks. A systematic proce dure is applied, based on single perturbation experiments, for the construc tion of one-dimensional maps for the periodically forced oscillator. A math ematical model is proposed for the description of the dynamical phenomena i nduced by the laser light. The model equations predict most of the experime ntal findings.