MEMRISYS 2026: Memristor researchers meet in Darmstadt
2026/10/01
From 5 to 8 October, ‘MEMRISYS’, one of the most important international conferences on memristors, will take place at the Darmstadtium. The conference is being organised by Professor Lambert Alff, Head of the Advanced Thin Film Technology Group at the Institute of Materials Science, and Professor Christian Hochberger, Head of the Computer Systems Group in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology. We interviewed Lambert Alff ahead of the conference.
Professor Alff, to start with the basics: what exactly is a memristor – and how would you explain how it works to someone who has never come across the concept before?
‘Memristor’ is a portmanteau of ‘memory’ and ‘resistor’. A memristor is therefore a resistor that ‘remembers’ the currents that have flowed through it by changing its resistance value. With very small currents, this value can be read out without the memristor ‘noticing’ – that is, without it changing its resistance. This may sound rather unspectacular at first, but it allows certain computational operations to be carried out very energy-efficiently. And the more resistance values that can be ‘remembered’, the more effective this becomes.
What makes memristor technologies so interesting for research at the moment?
Memristors are a relatively new component. A very relevant area of research is how to modify digital memristors (with two states) so that they can distinguish between a wide range of resistance values, effectively functioning in an analogue manner. This is linked to new materials and new circuit designs. So there is a real sense of excitement within the research community. Another aspect is neuromorphic computing. Memristors can be used to replicate functions of the human brain. The brain is extremely energy-efficient. This, too, is a promising field for the future of electronics.
One of the key focuses of MEMRISYS 2026 is the interplay between memristor technologies and artificial intelligence. How are these two fields of research connected?
The computational operations I just mentioned include matrix-vector multiplications. Perhaps few people are familiar with the term. But everyone uses these calculations when they ask ChatGPT (TUDa ChatGPT, of course) a question on their mobile phone. And everyone has also heard that artificial intelligence is extremely energy-intensive. This is where memristors can help.
As a scientific organiser, what do you hope to gain from the exchange at the conference – and why is it particularly important in this field of research to bring together different disciplines?
International exchange is hugely important for science. Without conferences like this, research would progress much more slowly. Face-to-face exchanges often give rise to entirely new ideas.
We also have a special highlight: Professor Leon Chua, who postulated the memristor based on theoretical considerations, turned 90 this year. In a special session, we will review the development of the memristor from its beginnings right through to its current and future applications. Leon Chua himself will also deliver a commemorative lecture.
The questions were asked by Bettina Bastian
