Experimental observation of delay-induced radio frequency chaos in a transmission line oscillator

We report an experimental study of fast chaotic dynamics in a delay dynamical system. The system is an electronic device consisting of a length of coaxial cable terminated on one end with a diode and on the other with a negative resistor. When the negative resistance is large, the system evolves to a steady state. As the negative resistance is decreased, a Hopf bifurcation occurs. By varying the length of the transmission line we observe Hopf frequencies from 7-53 MHz. With the transmission line length fixed, we observe a period doubling route to chaos as the negative resistance is further reduced providing the first experimental confirmation of an existing theoretical model for nonlinear dynamics in transmission line oscillators [Corti et al., IEEE Trans. Circ. Syst., I: Fundam. Theory Appl. 41, 730 (1994)]. However, other experimental results indicate limitations to this model including an inability to predict the Hopf frequency or to produce realistic continuous wave forms. We extend the model to include finite bandwidth effects present in a real negative resistor. The resulting model is a neutral delay differential equation that provides better agreement with experimental results.