Dynamical properties of electrical circuits with fully nonlinear memristors

The recent design of a nanoscale device with a memristive characteristic has had a great impact in nonlinear circuit theory. Such a device, whose existence was predicted by Leon Chua in 1971, is governed by a charge-dependent voltage–current relation of the form v=M(q)iv=M(q)i. In this paper, we show that allowing for a fully nonlinear characteristic v=η(q,i)v=η(q,i) in memristive devices provides a general framework for modeling and analyzing a very broad family of electrical and electronic circuits; Chua’s memristors are particular instances in which η(q,i)η(q,i) is linear in ii. We examine several dynamical features of circuits with fully nonlinear memristors, accommodating not only charge-controlled but also flux-controlled ones, with a characteristic of the form i=ζ(φ,v)i=ζ(φ,v). Our results apply in particular to Chua’s memristive circuits; certain properties of these can be seen as a consequence of the special form of the elastance and reluctance matrices displayed by Chua’s memristors.