Information transduction via fuel-controlled chemical waves

Synthetic chemical systems exhibiting spatiotemporal control have been growing in sophistication, and oscillators are likely a key design element of future chemical technologies. However, only a few systems capable of sustained oscillations are known, and higher levels of control over molecular concentration—beyond alternating between extremes—have not yet been realized. Here, we show that highly controllable waves of molecular concentration can be generated from a fueled reaction network. By altering parameters in real-time, the frequency and amplitude of the molecular concentrations can be modulated, permitting a near continuum of waveforms. We apply the waveform generator to encode information in waves of chemical concentration. Translation of wave patterns using recognizable formats, such as Morse code and nucleic acid sequences, decodes the data. We anticipate that transducing data in molecular concentrations could enable new technologies in molecular sensing and computing and that wave generators could be incorporated into future nanotechnologies.