  Critical phenomena in complex networks, and the emergence of dynamical abrupt
transitions in the macroscopic state of the system are currently a subject of
the outmost interest. We report evidence of an explosive phase synchronization
in networks of chaotic units. Namely, by means of both extensive simulations of
networks made up of chaotic units, and validation with an experiment of
electronic circuits in a star configuration, we demonstrate the existence of a
first order transition towards synchronization of the phases of the networked
units. Our findings constitute the first prove of this kind of synchronization
in practice, thus opening the path to its use in real-world applications.
