Relaxation-free athermal states in VO2 for thermal-breach memory

A new kind of memory, termed thermal-breach memory, recently introduced in halide perovskites asa consequence of its athermal metastable states combined with return-point memory. Whilepreviously demonstrated at low temperatures (~150 K), we extend this concept to vanadium dioxide(VO₂), which undergoes a metal-insulator transition above room temperature. By quantifying theathermal nature of VO₂’s non-equilibrium states, we show that a 1 K thermal perturbation can bedetected through irreversible resistance change of its metastable state, enabling precise thermalsensing. Moreover, the establishment of concept of thermal-breach memory above roomtemperature broadens the scope of VO₂-based devices from voltage-driven to thermally controlledcomputing operations.