Gluing bifurcations in optothermal nonlinear devices

The gluing process through which two limit cycles become a two-lobed limit cycle by involving an intermediate saddle point has been investigated in the reflection of an optothermal nonlinear device that behaves as a three-dimensional dynamical system. Sequences of both periodic and aperiodic oscillations of complex hybrid structures appear during the process. The observed phenomena have been interpreted as arising from a set of homoclinic bifurcations organized around some codimension-two global bifurcations in which the saddle point experiences homoclinicity at both sides simultaneously. Experimental results are compared with numerical simulations.