Printed and flexible in/organic memristor devices

In the paper 'Printed and flexible organic and inorganic memristor devices for non-volatile memory applications', published in Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics, Alex Gee, with collaborators from the University of Nottingham review progress in the field of printed and flexible memristor devices and discuss their potential across a wide range of applications. 

They being by explaining why printable computer memory is desirable; the international effort to develop new types of computer memory that consume ultra-low levels of power means that Co₂ emissions could be lowered, and the charge held by some devices could be for longer periods.  

The authors explain that non-volatile memory is an obvious choice since it does not consume power to retain information like conventional SRAM and DRAM.  Memristors (or memory resistor) are a new type of memory that are intrinsically non-volatile in nature.  Their simple two-terminal architecture, easy method of fabrication and low power consumption means they have received much attention from both the research community and industry.  

Devices with the lowest fabrication costs are made from organic or hybrid (organic-inorganic) composite materials because of their ability to use low-cost solution processing methods with the advantages of large area deposition under vacuum-free and room temperature ambient conditions.  

Memristors have excellent device properties, including a large resistance 'off/on' ratio (up to 5 orders of magnitude), fast switching speeds (less than 15 ns), long endurance (over 10¹² cycles), long data storage retention time (~10 years) and high scalability down to nanoscale dimensions.