Self-organized Multi-Frequency Clusters in an Oscillating Electrochemical System with Strong Nonlinear Coupling

TL;DR

This paper investigates complex spatio-temporal patterns, including multi-frequency clusters, in an electrochemical system with nonlinear coupling, revealing insights into the emergence of diverse oscillatory behaviors.

Contribution

It introduces the observation of multi-frequency clusters in electrochemical oscillations and attributes their emergence to nonlinear, nonlocal coupling mechanisms.

Findings

Identification of uniform oscillations, modulated clusters, and multi-frequency coexistence.

Multi-frequency clusters arise from nonlinear, nonlocal coupling.

The phenomena are analogous to neural dynamics mechanisms.

Abstract

We study the spatio-temporal dynamics of the oscillatory photo-electrodissolution of n-type Si in a fluoride-containing electrolyte under anodic potentials using in-situ ellipsometric imaging. When lowering the illumination intensity step-wise, we successively observe uniform oscillations, modulated amplitude clusters, and the coexistence of multi-frequency clusters i.e., regions with different frequencies, with a stationary domain. We argue that the multi-frequency clusters emerge due to an adaptive, nonlinear, and nonlocal coupling, similar to those found in the context of neural dynamics.