An experimental proof that resistance-switching memories are not memristors

TL;DR

This paper experimentally demonstrates that resistance-switching memories, including electrochemical metallization cells, do not conform to the theoretical definition of memristors, challenging the universality of the memristor concept.

Contribution

The study provides the first experimental proof that resistance-switching memories are not memristors, using a recently proposed unambiguous test, and questions the physical realizability of ideal memristors.

Findings

Electrochemical metallization cells are not memristors.

Resistance-switching memories do not satisfy the memristor definition.

The results lead to conjectures on the impossibility of physical memristor models.

Abstract

It has been suggested that all resistive-switching memory cells are memristors. The latter are hypothetical, ideal devices whose resistance, as originally formulated, depends only on the net charge that traverses them. Recently, an unambiguous test has been proposed [J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. {\bf 52}, 01LT01 (2019)] to determine whether a given physical system is indeed a memristor or not. Here, we experimentally apply such a test to both in-house fabricated Cu-SiO2 and commercially available electrochemical metallization cells. Our results unambiguously show that electrochemical metallization memory cells are not memristors. Since the particular resistance-switching memories employed in our study share similar features with many other memory cells, our findings refute the claim that all resistance-switching memories are memristors. They also cast doubts on the existence of ideal memristors as actual physical devices that can be fabricated experimentally. Our results then lead us to formulate two memristor impossibility conjectures regarding the impossibility of building a model of physical resistance-switching memories based on the memristor model.