Field-accessed magnetic bubble replicator

Claim 1

A field-accessed bubble splitting system, comprising a sheet of magnetic bubble material, means for producing and maintaining magnetic bubbles therein, means for generating a rotating magnetic drive field in the plane of said sheet, and a ferromagnetic circuit overlay pattern operatively disposed on said sheet defining an input channel and a pair of diverging channels defining consecutive bubbles positions through which bubbles are propagated by said drive field, said diverging channels being joined together to said input channel so as to gradually diverge therefrom, the angle of divergence of said diverging channels being sufficiently small to maintain a bubble propagated from said input channel stretched across said diverging channels for several consecutive bubble positions, one of said diverging channels having an abrupt turn away from the other of said diverging channels, the distance from the junction of said diverging channels with said input channel to the abrupt turn in said one diverging channel corresponding to several complete rotations of said drive field, said distance from said junction to said abrupt turn being predetermined such that by the time a stretched bubble arrives at said turn its limit of stretch has not yet been exceeded and it is thus severed at the turn into two bubbles which propagate on down said diverging channels respectively.