{
  "abstract": "Correlated oxides can switch to a low-resistance state when exposed to a voltage, making these insulator-to-metal transition materials promising candidates for memristor technology. Switching in materials such as VO2 occurs because of a thermal-runaway instability that leads to the abrupt formation of a hot current-carrying metallic filament within the insulator. We study, theoretically and experimentally, this bias-induced switching as a non-linear dynamics stability problem. We construct Landau free energy-like Lyapunov functions to show that both the on-state (\"set\") and the off-state (\"reset\") transitions can be described as separate saddle-node bifurcations. Starting from the reaction-diffusion equation for the heat transport, the abrupt snap-back (reset) to the insulating state is systematically formulated as a mean field Landau-like dynamics with the filament width playing the role of the order parameter. The formulation predicts an abrupt first-order phase transition with a break-off of a finite width filament across the current-controlled reset transition. The formulation is quantitatively compared against our electrical and optical microscopy experiments on VO2 thin film devices. Multi-cycle switching dynamics experiments further reveal the emergence of a stable stochastic regime following an initial electro-spatial forming phase. Beyond establishing a cross-disciplinary dynamical framework that may be readily compared to instabilities in various reaction-diffusion scenarios, the work also provides a predictive foundation for the rational design and optimization of Mott-transition-based technologies.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [],
  "article_type": null,
  "arxiv": "2610.01055",
  "author_total": 5,
  "authors": [
    {
      "name": "Aniket Bajaj"
    },
    {
      "name": "Anudeep Tullibilli"
    },
    {
      "name": "Arup Basak"
    },
    {
      "name": "Pavan Nukala"
    },
    {
      "name": "Bhavtosh Bansal"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/0avf0dynatm7m.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.48550/arxiv.2610.01055",
  "fulltext_url": null,
  "id": "0avf0dynatm7m",
  "issns": [],
  "landing_url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.01055",
  "language": null,
  "licence": "CC-BY-4.0",
  "licence_label": "CC BY 4.0",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": "CC0-1.0",
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "arxiv",
      "cond-mat.mtrl-sci"
    ],
    [
      "arxiv",
      "cond-mat.stat-mech"
    ],
    [
      "openalex",
      "2208|Advanced Memory and Neural Computing"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": "W7216080165",
  "pdf_url": "https://arxiv.org/pdf/2610.01055",
  "pmcid": null,
  "pmid": null,
  "published": "2026-10-01",
  "publisher": null,
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/0avf0dynatm7m.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-30T12:26:03Z",
      "native_id": "2610.01055",
      "source": "arxiv",
      "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.01055"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "physics",
      "origin": "arxiv:cond-mat.mtrl-sci",
      "subfield": "condensed-matter"
    },
    {
      "field": "physics",
      "origin": "arxiv:cond-mat.stat-mech",
      "subfield": "statistical-nonlinear"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Landau-like formalism for the thermal-runaway and filamentation instabilities in switching Mott devices",
  "title_text": "Landau-like formalism for the thermal-runaway and filamentation instabilities in switching Mott devices",
  "type": "preprint",
  "updated_at": "2026-10-30T12:26:03Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/0avf0dynatm7m",
  "venue": "arXiv",
  "versions": []
}