An Experimental Proof that Resistance-Switching Memory Cells are not Memristors
Jinsun Kim, Yuriy V. Pershin, Ming Yin, Timir Datta, Massimiliano Di Ventra
Abstract
It has been suggested that all resistive-switching memory cells are\nmemristors. The latter are hypothetical, ideal devices whose resistance, as\noriginally formulated, depends only on the net charge that traverses them.\nRecently, an unambiguous test has been proposed [J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. {\\bf\n52}, 01LT01 (2019)] to determine whether a given physical system is indeed a\nmemristor or not. Here, we experimentally apply such a test to both in-house\nfabricated Cu-SiO2 and commercially available electrochemical metallization\ncells. Our results unambiguously show that electrochemical metallization memory\ncells are not memristors. Since the particular resistance-switching memories\nemployed in our study share similar features with many other memory cells, our\nfindings refute the claim that all resistance-switching memories are\nmemristors. They also cast doubts on the existence of ideal memristors as\nactual physical devices that can be fabricated experimentally. Our results then\nlead us to formulate two memristor impossibility conjectures regarding the\nimpossibility of building a model of physical resistance-switching memories\nbased on the memristor model.