Memristance and transmemristance in multiterminal memristive systems

Memristive devices represent promising building blocks for the development of next-generation memory technologies, computing architectures, and neuromorphic systems. In addition to conventional two-terminal memristive circuits and crossbar array structures, multiterminal memristive systems—where emergent behaviors arise from the mutual interaction of numerous memristive elements—have been explored for neuromorphic data processing and computing applications. In these multiterminal systems, the internal state dynamics depend not only on time-varying input signals, as in two-terminal devices, but also on the spatial location of the stimulated terminals. In this work, we extend the concept of two-terminal memristive devices to multiterminal memristive systems. Beyond discussing the notion of memresistance in multiterminal devices—as the evolution of the system “seen” from the stimulating terminals—we demonstrate that the two-terminal memristive framework can be generalized to the concept of transmemristance when additional, non-stimulating electrodes are used to monitor the system’s evolution. These concepts are investigated both analytically and experimentally, using a theoretical memristive graph model and an experimental memristive system based on self-organizing nanowire networks.