We have designed and tested materials that show promise for potential reconfigurable electronics applications. These materials include phase-change materials that exhibit multiple crystalline forms in addition to an amorphous state, thus providing a potentially stable multi-state phase-change resistance variable material. In addition to the multi-state phase-change materials, materials that exhibit superior ion-conducting properties for resistance variable operation have been developed. These materials operate at temperatures above 425 K without showing the device degradation typically observed when the conductive metal ions diffuse into the underlying active switching layer at these temperatures. As the materials involved are amorphous, the resistance states obtained do not have fixed discrete values, but rather have a distribution of possible values over a finite range. Resistances within these distributions can be achieved through programming currents applied above threshold voltage.