Circuit elements with memory: memristors, memcapacitors and meminductors

TL;DR

This paper generalizes memory-dependent circuit elements to capacitors and inductors, highlighting their hysteretic behavior and potential applications in neuromorphic systems and nanoscale electronics.

Contribution

It introduces memcapacitors and meminductors as extensions of memristive systems, emphasizing their properties, behaviors, and potential technological applications.

Findings

All three elements exhibit pinched hysteretic loops.

These elements are prevalent at the nanoscale due to electron and ion dynamics.

They enable new functionalities in electronic circuits, especially in neuromorphic devices.

Abstract

We extend the notion of memristive systems to capacitive and inductive elements, namely capacitors and inductors whose properties depend on the state and history of the system. All these elements show pinched hysteretic loops in the two constitutive variables that define them: current-voltage for the memristor, charge-voltage for the memcapacitor, and current-flux for the meminductor. We argue that these devices are common at the nanoscale where the dynamical properties of electrons and ions are likely to depend on the history of the system, at least within certain time scales. These elements and their combination in circuits open up new functionalities in electronics and they are likely to find applications in neuromorphic devices to simulate learning, adaptive and spontaneous behavior.