A class of versatile circuits, made up of standard electrical components, are memristors

In this paper, we propose a whole class of memristor circuits. Each element from the class consists of the cascade connection between a static nonlinear two-port and a dynamic one-port. The class may be divided into two subclasses depending on the input variable (voltage or current). Within each of these subclasses, two further sets of memristor circuits may be distinguished according to which output voltage and current of the two-port represents one of the system states. The simplest memristor circuits make only use of purely passive elementary components from circuit theory, an absolute novelty in this field of research. Thus they are suitable circuit primers for the introduction of the topic of memristors to undergraduate students. A sample circuit is built using discrete devices and its memristive nature is validated experimentally. In case the one-port is purely passive, the proposed circuits feature volatile memristive behavior. Allowing active devices into the dynamic one-port, non-volatile dynamics may also emerge, as proved through concepts from the theory of nonlinear dynamics. Given the generality of the proposed class, the topology of the emulators may be adjusted so as to induce a large variety of dynamical behaviors, which may be exploited to accomplish new signal processing tasks, which conventional circuits are unable to perform.