A major scientific achievement led by researchers at INRiM, in collaboration with international partners, opens new perspectives for electrical metrology. For the first time, it has been demonstrated that memristors – novel nanoscale switching devices – can provide stable resistance values directly linked to the fundamental constants of nature.
Since 2019, all the base units of the International System of Units (SI) have been defined in terms of fundamental natural constants. In this framework, electrical resistance is currently realized through the quantum Hall effect, a highly accurate and reproducible method that, however, requires extreme laboratory conditions like temperatures close to absolute zero and magnetic fields stronger than those in MRI systems.
Memristors offer a radically new approach. By controlling the configuration of conductive channels at the nanoscale, these devices can reproduce discrete quantum steps corresponding to the fundamental quantum of conductance (G₀) — a combination of the Planck constant (h) and the elementary charge (e).
This approach brings into reach a concept known as “NMI-on-a-chip”, enabling metrological services to be implemented directly on microchips. In the future, an electronic device could incorporate its reference directly into the chip, eliminating the need for long calibration chains.