A study of the memristor, the fourth circuit element

Abstract

Every person with an electronics background will be familiar with the three fundamental circuit elements—the resistor, the capacitor, and the inductor.These three elements are defined by the relation between two of the four fundamental circuit variables—current, voltage, charge and flux.In 1971, Leon Chua reasoned on the grounds of symmetry that there should be a fourth fundamental circuit element which gives the relationship between flux and charge.He named this circuit element the memristor, which is short for―"memory resistor."In May 2008, researchers at HP Labs published a paper announcing a model for the physical realization of the memristor. This report focuses on the memristor and reviews its properties.The HP model for the memristor is also discussed, and its behavior is studied through simulations.A few of the potential applications of the memristor are presented.