Three-species drift-diffusion models for memristors

Abstract

A system of drift-diffusion equations for the electron, hole, and oxygen vacancy densities in a semiconductor, coupled to the Poisson equation for the electric potential, is analyzed in a bounded domain with mixed Dirichlet-Neumann boundary conditions. This system describes the dynamics of charge carriers in a memristor device. Memristors can be seen as nonlinear resistors with memory, mimicking the conductance response of biological synapses. In the fast-relaxation limit, the system reduces to a drift-diffusion system for the oxygen vacancy density and electric potential, which is often used in neuromorphic applications. The following results are proved: the global existence of weak solutions to the full system in any space dimension; the uniform-in-time boundedness of the solutions to the full system and the fast-relaxation limit in two space dimensions; the global existence and weak-strong uniqueness analysis of the reduced system. Numerical experiments in one space dimension illustrate the behavior of the solutions and reproduce hysteresis effects in the current-voltage characteristics.