Impulse-induced localized nonlinear modes in an electrical lattice

Intrinsic localized modes, also called discrete breathers, can exist under certain conditions in one-dimensional nonlinear electrical lattices driven by external harmonic excitations. In this work, we have studied experimentally the efectiveness of generic periodic excitations of variable waveform at generating discrete breathers in such lattices. We have found that this generation phenomenon is optimally controlled by the impulse transmitted by the external excitation (time integral over two consecutive zeros