2004 年 25 巻 2 号 p. 104-109
Some electrochemical reactions spontaneously oscillates and forms a pattern on the electrode surface. These are caused by the non-linearity embedded in the reaction. We are interested in these phenomena in electrochemistry in terms of analogy between coupled electrochemical oscillators and neural oscillators, and synthesis of functional materials utilizing self-organization. In this article, we will present some of our recent works on the topics of (1) collective behaviors of coupled electrochemical oscillators and their analogy to neural network, (2) spontaneous synthesis of one dimensional layered nanostructures of copper metal and cuprous oxide, and (3) formation of a quantum contact through which the electronic conductance is quantized by 2e2/h.