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Semiconductor–Gas-Discharge Planar Structures as Devices for Unconventional Computing
Yu. A. Astrov

Recent studies of planar “semiconductor–gas-discharge plasma” devices are briefly reviewed. The attention is given to self-organization phenomena observed when feeding a device with a dc voltage. Devices operating at both at room temperature and under cryogenic conditions are discussed. Among the effects observed are the formation of Turing-like periodic small-amplitude structures in spatial distributions of electric current and the Andronov-Hopf bifurcation in the dynamics of the system. Other interesting dissipative structures are self-organized particle-like excitations (dissipative solitons), which can propagate through the active area of the device and scatter against each other. Under certain conditions, a stationary multifilament distribution of the electric current can be observed, which seems to represent the formation of a Voronoi-like diagram in the system. Some of the experimental observations are analyzed by using nonlinear equations for two variables. The wide variety of the observed nonlinear phenomena demonstrates that the devices are promising for unconventional computations.

Keywords: Electronic self–organized systems; gas-discharge planar devices.

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