Low-frequency switching in a transistor amplifier

It is known from extensive work with the diode resonator that the nonlinear properties of a P-N junction can lead to period doubling, chaos, and other complicated behaviors in a driven circuit. There has been very little work on what happens when more than one P-N junction is present. In this work, the first step towards multiple P-N junction circuits is taken by doing both experiments and simulations with a single-transistor amplifier using a bipolar transistor. Period doubling and chaos are seen when the amplifier is driven with signals between 100 kHz and 1 MHz, and they coincide with a very low frequency switching between different period doubled (or chaotic) wave forms. The switching frequencies are between 5 and 10 Hz. The switching behavior was confirmed in a simplified model of the transistor amplifier.