Nonlinear effects of electrolyte diodes and transistors in a polymer gel medium.
The polarization curve of an acid-base interface in a hydrogel medium has a diode characteristic. Two of each such electrolyte diodes can be combined to give an electrolyte transistor. When a salt is added to the alkaline or to the acidic part of a reverse biased electrolyte diode, the current response is highly nonlinear. If the salt is added to the acidic side, even bistability can be observed. This bistability can generate complex oscillations in a base-acid-base electrolyte transistor. These nonlinear effects are studied experimentally and theoretically. While the nonlinear salt effect can be explained with the Nernst-Planck equations, to understand the bistable behavior further investigations are necessary. (c) 1999 American Institute of Physics.
Hegedus
Laszlo
L
Center for Complex and Nonlinear Systems and the Department of Chemical Physics, Technical University of Budapest, H-1521 Budapest, Hungary.
Kirschner
Norbert
N
Wittmann
Maria
M
Simon
Peter
P
Noszticzius
Zoltan
Z
Amemiya
Takashi
T
Ohmori
Takao
T
Yamaguchi
Tomohiko
T