Figure 9.

Stochastic simulation plots for the three-phase oscillator, comparing buffered and unbuffered implementations. (a) Buffered oscillator using the buffered join gate defined in figure 6. The initial populations of buffered gates, initialized gates and fuels were 10 000, 1000 and 100 000, respectively. We observe constant periods of oscillation right up until the buffered gates are completely depleted at around 700 000 time units. (b) Unbuffered oscillator using an unbuffered join gate without garbage collection, the CRN of which was presented in figure 5. The initial populations of gates and fuels were 10 000 and 100 000, respectively. The higher initial population of unbuffered gates compared with initialized gates in the buffered case is offset to an extent by the fact that more ‘backwards strands’ <A t^ I> are present in this case. We observe a gradual drift in the period of oscillation as the gate population is gradually depleted. (a,b) red line, sum; green line, sum; ; blue line, sum