Aperiodic dynamics which is nonchaotic is realized on Strange Nonchaotic attractors (SNAs). Such attractors are generic in quasiperiodically driven nonlinear systems, and like strange attractors, are geometrically fractal. The largest Lyapunov exponent is zero or negative: trajectories do not show exponential sensitivity to initial conditions. In recent years, SNAs have been seen in a number of diverse experimental situations ranging from quasiperiodically driven mechanical or electronic systems to plasma discharges. An important connection is the equivalence between a quasiperiodically driven system and the Schrödinger equation for a particle in a related quasiperiodic potential, giving a correspondence between the localized states of the quantum problem with SNAs in the related dynamical system. In this review we discuss the main conceptual issues in the study of SNAs, including the different bifurcations or routes for the creation of such attractors, the methods of characterization, and the nature of dynamical transitions in quasiperiodically forced systems. The variation of the Lyapunov exponent, and the qualitative and quantitative aspects of its local fluctuation properties, has emerged as an important means of studying fractal attractors, and this analysis finds useful application here. The ubiquity of such attractors, in conjunction with their several unusual properties, suggest novel applications.

We discuss several bifurcation phenomena that occur in the quasiperiodically driven logistic map. This system can have strange nonchaotic attractors (SNAs) in addition to chaotic and regular attractors; on SNAs the dynamics is aperiodic, but the largest Lyapunov exponent is nonpositive. There are a number of different transitions that occur here, from periodic attractors to SNAs, from SNAs to chaotic attractors, etc. We describe some of these transitions by examining the behavior of the largest Lyapunov exponent, distributions of finite time Lyapunov exponents and the invariant densities in the phase space.

Localized states of Harper's equation correspond to strange nonchaotic attractors in the related Harper mapping. In parameter space, these fractal attractors with nonpositive Lyapunov exponents occur in fractally organized tongue-like regions which emanate from the Cantor set of eigenvalues on the critical line epsilon=1. A topological invariant characterizes wave functions corresponding to energies in the gaps in the spectrum. This permits a unique integer labeling of the gaps and also determines their scaling properties as a function of potential strength.

We show that it is possible to devise a large class of skew-product dynamical systems which have strange nonchaotic attractors (SNAs): the dynamics is asymptotically on fractal attractors and the largest Lyapunov exponent is nonpositive. Furthermore, we show that quasiperiodic forcing, which has been a hallmark of essentially all hitherto known examples of such dynamics is not necessary for the creation of SNAs.

We study a driven quasiperiodic skew-product dynamical mapping in which orbits with all Lyapunov exponents equal to zero lie on fractal attractors. These form a special category of strange nonchaotic attractors (SNAs), and we describe the scenario for their formation as well as methods for their characterization.