'Missing link' memristor created: Rewrite the textbooks?

The virtues of hysteresis
HP invited Chua to speak about his theory a few years ago, but at that time the lab did not tell Chua that they were actively seeking the memristor. Only two weeks ago did Williams tell Chua that he had used the proper variables--flux and charge--to invent the world's first working memristor.

A memristor works by virtue of hysteresis, whereby its rate of change accelerates as it moves from one state to the other--"on" to "off," or vice versa. Hysteresis has been explained away by current circuit theory as an anomaly, according to Chua and Williams, whereas its existence is, in fact, a fundamental property of passive circuitry.

"Hysteresis is a tell-tale manifestation of the fourth circuit element--the memristor," said Chua. "And Stan Williams is very smart to have realized that if you cannot explain something properly, then there must be a better explanation."

For instance, electrical engineers have known that titanium dioxide changes its resistance in the presence of oxygen--this is the principle behind titanium dioxide oxygen sensors--but they could not explain why.

"They traced its curve, and knew it contained hysteresis, but because they could not explain it, they could only design the simplest of devices using it--sensors," said Chua. "But now that it has been explained, they will be able to design all types of new circuitry using it. This is a wonderful development."

Chua predicts that electrical engineers will soon begin discovering all types of new materials that manifest the hysteresis relationship between flux and charge. He predicts that this new era of electronics will be able to solve the problems with scaling--such as using too much power and generating too much heat--that are currently plaguing progress in circuit design.

"The memristor is our salvation, because it works better and better as you make it smaller and smaller," said Chua. "The era of nanoscale electronics will be enabled by the memristor. This is not just an invention, it is a basic scientific discovery. It has always been there--we just had to face these nanoscale problems to realize its importance."

The memristor behaves like a non-linear resistor with memory--a small, compact and highly energy-efficient means of creating a memory device. But Chua and Williams claim it is also a new type of circuit element that should enable the creation of new devices never before imagined.

The world's first memristor invented at HP Labs by Williams and his research team is based on a two-layer sandwich of titanium dioxide films. As a memory element, it works by changing the atomic structure of the films--by coupling the motion of atoms in the material with the movement of electrons through the material. The bottom layer of HP's material uses a symmetrical lattice of titanium atoms and oxygen atoms, which makes it a good insulator. But the top layer has had oxygen vacancies introduced as a dopant, which makes it into a good conductor--the more vacancies, the more conductive. HP's secret sauce for creating these oxygen vacancies in titanium dioxide involves using sputter deposition that begins with an excess of oxygen, then cuts back on the oxygen flow to create the layer with vacancies.

By placing the crossbar of nanowires above and below the sandwiched layers, charge can be passed through the material. "The way I discovered the material for our memristor was by studying how titanium dioxide oxygen sensors work--that got me thinking about moving oxygen vacancies around in the material to create a memristor," said Williams. "By running current through the device, we can push oxygen vacancies from the layer that has them into the layer that does not, thereby changing its resistance by a factor of 1000 or even more, thus switching the memristor 'on,' then by reversing the current we can move the vacancies back into the first layer, thereby switching the memristor 'off'."