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Electronics

The fourth element

Nature volume 453, pages 42–43 (2008)Cite this article

Almost four decades since its existence was first proposed, a fourth basic circuit element joins the canonical three. The 'memristor' might herald a step-change in the march towards ever more powerful circuitry.

We learn at school that there are three fundamental two-terminal elements used for circuit building: resistors, capacitors and inductors. These are 'passive' elements, capable of dissipating or storing energy — but not, as active elements are, of generating it. The behaviour of each of these elements is described by a simple linear relationship between two of the four basic variables describing a circuit: current, voltage, charge and magnetic flux.

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Figure 1: Complete quartet.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. James M. Tour and Tao He are in the Departments of Chemistry, Computer Science, Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science, and the Smalley Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005, USA. tour@rice.edu,

    James M. Tour & Tao He

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  1. James M. Tour
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  2. Tao He
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Tour, J., He, T. The fourth element. Nature 453, 42–43 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/453042a

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