We have recently reported on an unexpected phenomenon in transition metal oxides (TMOs) with strongly correlated electrons - a non volatile memory effect1. The effect is manifested in TMOs with a temperature-driven insulator to metal transition, in the form of a resistance increase at specific temperatures. The effect can be attributed to a creation of stress/strain distortions on spatial phase boundaries (“scars”) when reversing the temperature-ramp mid-transition from heating to cooling, thus coined “ramp reversal memory” (RRM). There are still many open questions regarding the dynamics of these “scars”. E.g., how will the scars change with different ramp rates? Local laser heating? Do the scars have any sort of directionality? Are they influenced by current? What are the dynamics of scar creation and annihilation for multiple ramp-reversal cycles?  We report on our recent transport measurements of the RRM, comparing three TMOs (VO2, V2O3 and NdNiO3), showing different growth of the scars before and after the percolation threshold of the spatially separated metal and insulating phases2.

1. Vardi, N. et al. Ramp-Reversal Memory and Phase-Boundary Scarring in Transition Metal Oxides. Adv. Mater. 29, (2017).

2. Yamin, T., Strelniker, Y. M. & Sharoni, A. High resolution Hall measurements across the VO2 metal-insulator transition reveal impact of spatial phase separation. Sci. Rep. 6, 19496 (2016).