Model of Multifilamentary Resistive Switching for a Memristor with Hopping Conductivity

Many applications, including learning neuromorphic computing systems, require the analogue or, at least, multilevel resistive switching (RS) of memristor devices. In metal–insulator–metal (MIM) structures it is often associated with the creation of a large number of conductive channels, or filaments, but in the majority of cases, especially for the vacancy mechanism of RS, the direct observation of many filaments is difficult or impossible. In this work, a model of the explicit filament conductivity distribution for a nanocomposite (NC) LiNbO3-based memristor, that nonetheless may be applicable to other types of MIM memristors with hopping conductivity over dangling bonds in an amorphous insulator layer, is derived from physical principles. This model, in addition to indirect evidence from magnetic and capacitance measurements, reaffirms the multifilamentary RS mechanism by the approximation of experimental data on synaptic plasticity, i.e., a change in the conductivity of a memristor by a pair of pulses applied to it. The results of this research offer opportunities to study RS in MIM structures at the macroscopic level using model filament distributions and substantiates the possibility of successfully applying the considered NC memristors as synaptic elements of neuromorphic networks.