In 2009, the concept of the memristors was extended to memcapacitors and meminductors by Professor Leon Chua. Memcapacitors are defined by a charge–voltage relation. A memcapacitor can be created from a memristor with a mutator. Memcapacitors are generalizations of usual capacitators and are fundamental circuit elements. They are nonlinear capacitators with immediate responses. When physical models of memcapacitors are created, they exhibit features such as unpinched hysteresis loops and chaotic behavior. Memcapacitors are used in nanoscale devices, which can store data without a power source.
There are various methods to create models for memcapacitors, including models based on state space description. There is also a memcapacitor-based oscillator circuit that has been developed. There are different models being designed and experimented on in order to make it available commercially. Research surrounding memcapacitors includes simulation program with integrated circuit emphasis simulator.