Fourth One

The three passives Resistance Capacitance and the inductance forms the pillar of basic electrical circuits. With the discovery of Memristor the fourth one, the circuit basics has to be re understood. People say it can explain the broken link between electric charge and magnetic flux and have realized by introducing defects into the titanium dioxide crystal. To put it simply the titanium dioxide crystal lattice is very sensitive to the applied voltage which excites the dopants to move and thereby changing the resistance. (Dopants are basically impurities added to the insulator which alters their crystal structure and makes them suitable for conducting current). So when we use it next time, it will start with its previous crystal arrangement and thus has a memory feature. This is a good news both for memory and signal processing world. The circuit basics has to be revisited and the common man should be able to plug its properties into basic circuit theorems and be able to validate it. Till date nobody felt the need of such device except memory and thus it opens various area to explore. The challenging part would be to invent new application for this device which can reach out to people.We have to wait and watch how much of it is yield friendly and its appetite to shrink. Given all the things gets going as per predictions, the circuit design activities will see a new dawn and many more concepts will get invented.

Ack: News of Invention of a new device at HP labs in 2008
Initial findings of the same by L.O Chua at UCB way back in 1971