US Patent 8076662 - Nanostructured oxide memresistor

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/8076662.html

Over the past few years Samsung (US Patent 7417271) and Sharp (US Patent 7796416) have been developing memory resistors based on metal oxide materials. This latest patent from Harvard teaches another variation of memory resistors including nanodot structures. Claim 7 reads:

7. An oxide nanostructure, comprising:

a substrate;

a nanoscale oxide thin film deposited on the substrate, the nanoscale oxide thin film having a conductance that can be changed by an electric field transmitted across the film; and

one or more nanodots deposited on the nanoscale oxide thin film;

wherein the nanodots are adapted, when an electric field is applied thereto, to transmit the electric field across the nanoscale thin film so that the conductance of the thin film is changed and a metal-insulator transition is induced across the thin film.