Eur. Phys. J. Special Topics 222, 721-728 (2013)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjst/e2013-01875-2

Regular Article

Verification of scalable ultra-sensitive detection of heterogeneity in an electronic circuit

Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Mohali, Knowledge City, SAS Nagar, Sector 81, Manauli PO 140 306, Punjab, India

Received: 22 March 2013
Revised: 3 May 2013
Published online: 11 July 2013

Abstract

We study the impact of small heterogeneity in signals applied to globally coupled nonlinear bistable elements. In the absence of coupling, the collective response is simply the average of all the uncorrelated signals. When the elements are coupled and a bias is applied, we find that even a very small number of different inputs are able to drag the collective response towards the stable state of the minority inputs. In our explicit demonstration we have taken Schmitt triggers as the basic nonlinear bistable elements, and the inputs are encoded as voltages applied to them. The average of output voltages of all the Schmitt triggers corresponds to the global output of the system. We also observe that the minimum heterogeneity that can be detected scales with ratio of threshold voltage to source voltage of the Schmitt triggers, and can be be brought down to the limit of single bit detection.