ABSTRACT

Dendrites are structures that develop with a continuously branching tree-like form. Such patterns are found in many aspects of the natural world, which indicates the universality of their topology. This review presents an examination of dendritic structures, addressing their stochasticity and fractal character, and exploring their information content or more specifically their ability to provide a very large number of unique patterns that may be used as a novel form of item identification. A brief summary of fractals and their dimensionality is presented and applied to the well-known diffusion limited aggregate (DLA) dendritic construct. Dendrites formed by electrochemical ‘self-assembly’ are explored and examples given of their formation under different conditions. Stochastic variations in the self-similar Y-shaped symbol that underlies these fractals can carry information, leading to significant entropy, even though the structural entropy of the overall pattern is relatively small.

摘要

树突是以连续分枝的树状形式发育的结构。这种模式在自然界的许多方面都存在，这表明它们的拓扑结构具有普遍性。这篇综述对树突结构进行了检查，解决了它们的随机性和分形特征，并探索了它们的信息内容，或者更具体地说，它们提供了大量独特模式的能力，这些模式可用作项目识别的新形式。提供了分形及其维数的简要总结，并将其应用于众所周知的扩散受限聚合 (DLA) 树突结构。探索了通过电化学“自组装”形成的枝晶，并给出了它们在不同条件下形成的例子。