Nanostructural anisotropy underlies anisotropic electrical bistability.

Regular arrays of nanorods having asymmetric cross-sections are fabricated by a combination of electrodeposition and glancing-angle deposition (GLAD). When these nanorods are embedded in a polymer matrix, they give rise to composite materials in which the structural anisotropy at the nanoscale translates into functional anisotropy in the form of direction-dependent electrical bistability. The degree of this directional bistability depends on and can be controlled by the spacing between the nearby nanorods.