A Inhibitor Sensitive, Collision Based Switching Like Transistor Element Using Periodic Traveling Waves and Cellular Automata
Nikolaos I. Dourvas and Georgios Ch. Sirakoulis
The reaction-diffusion (RD) models describe the change in the behavior of one or more chemical substances through space and time. The RD interaction can create waves of chemical concentration when the chemical systems used are far from equilibrium. The velocity and direction of those waves can be controlled and altered using excitable media or inhibitors. In particular, excitable media are spatially distributed systems characterized by their ability to propagate signals undamped over long distances, while inhibitors are used to reduce the propagation of those signals. The behavior of chemical oscillators are based on such media. The concept of this article is the proposal of a Cellular Automaton (CA) model which exploits the wave propagation characteristics on an excitable medium using inhibitors to create a switching element which is capable of distinguishing two binary states and present a form of amplification, like a basic transistor. In such a sense an unconventional chemical made device with properties similar to the conventional basic element of today’s electronics, namely CMOS transistor is conceived. Furthermore, and in order to properly explore the potential of the proposed device, we design a combination of two of those transistors to prove that they can reproduce Boolean algebra by creating two of the most well known and important component, i.e. the inverter NOT logic gate and the universal logic gate NAND.
Keywords: Excitable media; reaction-diffusion; wave propagation; cellular automata; transistor