Mutual synchronization of rotary pulses in coupled tunnel‐diode oscillator lattice loops

Abstract

SummaryCoupled tunnel‐diode oscillator lattice loops are investigated to characterize the mutual synchronization of nonlinear rotary pulses. In a properly biased lattice loop, a pulsed phase wave autonomously rotates. When two loops are coupled, these pulses are supposed to be mutually synchronized to start rotating with a fixed phase difference. To quantify the synchronization properties of both the in‐phase and out‐of‐phase rotary pulses, two five‐cell loops that are point‐coupled by a capacitor are studied using bifurcation analyses with respect to the bias voltage and coupling capacitance. In‐phase pulses are allowed irrespective of the coupling capacitance, whereas relatively small coupling is favorable for out‐of‐phase pulses. Moreover, a solution exists whose phase difference continuously varies with the bias voltage, which bifurcates from the out‐of‐phase pulses through pitchfork bifurcation. This study presents the result from the bifurcation analyses. For validation of the rotary pulse in the coupled loops, we measured a breadboarded test circuit in both the frequency and time domains. The in‐phase, out‐of‐phase, and symmetry‐broken rotary pulses were detected successfully.