title: Spatial forcing of spontaneous optical patterns.
abstract: A nonlinear optical system, which spontaneously forms hexagonal patterns, is exposed to a weak, spatially modulated forcing. As forcing, stationary hexagonal patterns are used under variation of their transverse wave number. In the experiment, we observe a locking when the forcing wave number is close to one of the critical wave numbers of the unforced system. Outside the locking regimes, forcing provokes spatiotemporal disorder. The system response is characterized quantitatively with respect to its dynamics and to its spatial order.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Applied Physics, Darmstadt University of Technology, Hochschulstrabetae 6, 64289 Darmstadt, Germany.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Neubecker
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Zimmermann