Self-Organized Formation of Spatial and Temporal Dissipative Structures in Semiconductors

Abstract

Nonlinear current transport behavior during avalanche breakdown of germanium comprises the spontaneous symmetry-breaking evocation of both spatially inhomogeneous and temporally unstable dissipative structures in the formerly homogeneous semiconductor. Such kind of nonequilibrium order-disorder transitions are discussed in terms of two simple models based on the new circle-map formalism of universal scaling behavior and the well-known Rashevsky- Turing theory of morphogenesis.