Bistable Systems of Differential Equations with Applications to Tunnel Diode Circuits

A mathematical analysis is developed for nonlinear circuits which have at least two stable steady states, and therefore are of interest as computing or memory elements. Circuits containing one or two tunnel diodes will be analyzed in detail as applications of the theory. The method is based on the study of certain “potential function” whose extrema are the steady states of the circuit and whose minima correspond to the stable switching states. This study leads to a qualitative description of all solutions in the large and results in quantitative restrictions on the parameters (R, L, C and nonlinear characteristics) which seem of practical importance.