Standard and nonstandard Turing patterns and waves in the CIMA reaction

We describe experimental evidence of stable triangular and hexagon-band mixed mode nonstandard patterns, in a three-dimensional chemical reaction-diffusion system with steep gradients of chemical constraints. These gradients confine the structures in a more or less thick stratum of the system. At onset, patterns develop in monolayers which approximate two-dimensional systems; but beyond onset, three-dimensional aspects have to be considered. We show that the nonstandard pattern symmetries result from the coupling of standard hexagonal and striped pattern modes which develop at adjacent positions, due to the differences in parameter values along the direction of the gradients. We evidence a Turing-Hopf codimension-2 point and show that some mixed mode chaotic dynamics, reminiscent of spatio-temporal intermittency combining the Turing and the Hopf modes, are also a consequence of the three-dimensional aspect of the structure. The relations between these observations and the theoretical studies performed in genuine two-dimensional systems are still open to discussion.