Recently bipolar resistive switching of transition metal oxides is investigated to be used in next-generation non-volatile memory technologies. Switchable resistance states are based on reduction and oxidation (redox) reactions within the oxides. In the first part of this study resistive switching in Fe-doped SrTiO(3) thin films is discussed. Careful conductive tip AFM analysis revealed that after the electroforming and top electrode removal a very complex switching behavior emerges. Locally separated filamentary as well as area dependent switching with different switching polarity with respect to the bias polarity of the SET and RESET processes were observed in the same sample. In the second part of the paper nanocrossbar devices are proposed as a vehicle to ease the comparison of promising materials using identical device geometry. The potential scaling behavior of resistively switching memory elements is addressed by the preparation of nominally 100 x 100 nm(2) crosspoint structures using two different transition metal oxides, namely NiO and TiO(2). (C) 2011 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.