Towards the Complete Relational Graph of Fundamental Circuit Elements

TL;DR

This paper constructs a comprehensive relational graph of fundamental circuit elements, clarifies misconceptions about the memristor, and introduces the transtor and memtranstor as true fundamental elements based on magnetoelectric effects.

Contribution

It redefines the fundamental circuit elements, clarifies the role of memristor, and introduces the transtor and memtranstor as new fundamental components.

Findings

The memristor is not the true fourth fundamental element.

The transtor relates flux and charge via magnetoelectric effects.

Introduction of memtranstor as a memory extension of transtor.

Abstract

A complete and harmonized fundamental circuit relational graph with four linear and four memory elements is constructed based on newly defined elements, which provides a guide to developing novel circuit functionalities in the future. In addition to resistor, capacitor and inductor which are defined in terms of a linear relationship between the charge q, the current i, the voltage v, and the magnetic flux, Chua proposed in 1971 the fourth linear circuit element to directly relate magnetic flux and charge. A non-linear resistive device defined in memory i-v relation and dubbed memristor, was later attributed to such an element and has been realized in various material structures. Here we clarify that the memristor is not the true fourth fundamental circuit element but the memory extension to the concept of resistor, in analogy to the extension of memcapacitor to capacitor and meminductor to inductor. Instead, a two-terminal device employing the linear magnetoelectric effects, termed transtor, possesses the function of relating directly flux and charge and should take the position of the fourth linear element. Moreover, its memory extension, termed memtranstor, is proposed and analyzed here.