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Developing a novel quantum resistance standard at room temperature

City on a chip

Memristive devices that can be used as resistance standard or can be used for computing applications

Memristive devices are electrical resistance switches that couple ionics (the dynamics of ions) with electronics. These devices offer a promising platform to observe quantum effects in air, at room temperature, and without an applied magnetic field. By exploiting these quantum effects, they can be traced to fundamental physics constants fixed in the revised International System of Units, the SI, for the realisation of a standard of resistance. However, as an emerging technology, memristive devices lack standardisation and insights in the fundamental physics underlying their working principles, hindering their use.

Memristive devices represent a promising platform for next-generation information technologies, offering hybrid memory-logic operation, energy-efficient in-memory computing, and neuromorphic functionalities. Recent demonstrations of quantum conductance phenomena at room temperature in these nanoscale systems have highlighted their potential for powerful innovations in both computing and electrical metrology.

Completed EMPIR project Memristive devices as quantum standard for nanometrology (20FUN06, MEMQuD) provided landmark experimental evidence that such devices can operate as intrinsically traceable, SI-compatible standards of electrical resistance at room temperature, in air, and implemented on-chip to support the vision of ‘Lab-on-chip’ where auto-calibration process of measuring instrumentation is assured by novel quantum standards working at relaxed conditions with ‘zero-traceability chain’.

Nature Nanotechnology article

Key results of the project were recently published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology:

A quantum resistance memristor for an intrinsically traceable International System of Units standard

Despite this breakthrough proof-of-concept demonstration, present deviations between measured quantum conductance values and their corresponding SI units remain too large to meet the accuracy requirements for practical deployment and need adoption of emerging hybrid metrology framework for nanometrology to correlate nanoscale materials properties with device functionalities. Research based on these new metrological techniques, elucidating nanoscale transport mechanisms, such as energy dissipation and electron–phonon coupling in the quantum regime, as well as improving fabrication processes and electrical measurement protocols to achieve more reproducible and reliable quantum conductance states will be addressed in a proposal for a follow-up project.

The metrology developed within the framework of this project will contribute to the development of nanoelectronics devices for the realisation of new hardware architectures, capable of tackling societal challenges such as the development of artificial intelligence.

The development of new computing paradigms could reduce power consumption by orders of magnitude compared to conventional computing technologies, helping Europe to reduce the impact of information technology on carbon emission and to reach net-zero energy targets to combat climate change.

Project coordinator Gianluca Milano from INRiM said ‘For the first time, we have demonstrated that memristors can reliably generate discrete resistance states that are directly related to universal constants of nature - without the need for elaborate cooling systems or high magnetic fields.’

This EMPIR project is co-funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and the EMPIR Participating States.

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