Neuromorphic, Digital, and Quantum Computation With Memory Circuit Elements

Memory effects are ubiquitous in nature and the class of memory circuit elements—which includes memristive, memcapacitive, and meminductive systems—shows great potential to understand and simulate the associated physical processes. Here, we show that such elements can also be used in electronic schemes mimicking biologically inspired computer architectures, performing digital logic and arithmetic operations, and can expand the capabilities of certain quantum computation schemes. In particular, we will discuss some examples where the concept of memory elements is relevant to the realization of associative memory in neuronal circuits, spike-timing-dependent plasticity (STDP) of synapses, and digital and field-programmable quantum computing.