BIFURCATIONS AND THE TRANSITION TO CHAOS IN THE RESONANT-TUNNELING DIODE

Recent experiments by Muller et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 75, 2875 (1995)] and Boebinger et al. [Surf. Sci. 361-362, 742 (1996)] investigated th e transition to chaos and the effects of bifurcations on the magnetotu nneling spectrum of a quantum well in tilted fields. We introduce a co mputationally efficient model for the device which successfully reprod uces the main features of the experiments. We find that a number of se parate dynamical regimes in the experiment at theta=11 degrees are eac h characterized by a distinctive experimental spectral profile. We use this signature to identify a period doubling resonance and tangent bi furcation but find that the second observed period doubling in the tun neling current is not due to a bifurcation.