Jülich, 26 June 2014 – Highly efficient, energy-saving, and extremely fast: resistive switches are regarded as promising components for the next generation of computers. For the first time, Jülich scientists together with partners from the USA have observed exactly how the structures inside these pioneering switching devices are formed. Although they are solids, metal atoms move around within the material. For a long time, the exact mechanism had been unclear. The findings have been published in the specialist journal Nature Communications.