Abstract
The aim of this work is to experimentally clarify the reasons for the appearance of jumps in the current and memory of semiconductor nanoporous structures.Porous nanostructures were obtained by electrochemical etching. The current-voltage characteristics of the samples were measured for porous silicon and on thin films of a chalcogenide glassy semiconductor. The existence of jump-like switching and current hysteresis in porous silicon nanofilms under laser illumination is shown experimentally.A connection between the switching voltage values and the dependence of the band gap on the porosity of nanofilms is found. These results make it possible to construct a theory of current switching and its hysteresis based on the concepts of the theory of second-order phase transitions.