Pattern Formation in Reaction-Diffusion Enzyme Transistor Circuits

Masahiko HIRATSUKA  Takafumi AOKI  Tatsuo HIGUCHI  

Publication
IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Fundamentals of Electronics, Communications and Computer Sciences   Vol.E82-A   No.9   pp.1809-1817
Publication Date: 1999/09/25
Online ISSN: 
DOI: 
Print ISSN: 0916-8508
Type of Manuscript: Special Section PAPER (Special Section on Nonlinear Theory and Its Applications)
Category: 
Keyword: 
molecular computing,  molecular devices,  reaction-diffusion dynamics,  pattern formation,  nonlinear signal processing,  parallel processing,  

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Summary: 
This paper explores a possibility of constructing massively parallel molecular computing systems using molecular electronic devices called enzyme transistors. The enzyme transistor is, in a sense, an artificial catalyst which selects a specific substrate molecule and transforms it into a specific product. Using this primitive function, various active continuous media for signal transfer/processing can be realized. Prominent examples discussed in this paper are: (i) Turing pattern formation and (ii) excitable wave propagation in a two-dimensional enzyme transistor array. This paper demonstrates the potential of enzyme transistors for creating reaction-diffusion dynamics that performs useful computations in a massively parallel fashion.