Work extraction and Landauer's principle in a quantum spin Hall device

2017/05/31 by A. Mert Bozkurt, Barış Pekerten, Baris Pekerten +2
Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics #Computer science #Condensed matter physics #Energy (signal processing) #Erasure #Magnetic field #Maxwell's demon #Physics #Power (physics) #Quantum #Quantum Hall effect #Quantum and electron transport phenomena #Quantum mechanics #Spin (aerodynamics) #Spins #Topological Materials and Phenomena #Work (physics) #cond-mat.mes-hall #quant-ph

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevb.97.245414

published as Phys. Rev. B 97, 245414 (2018) · Accepted for publication PRB, 9 pages, 4 figures, RevTeX

arxiv created 2018/06/09 · openalex publication_date 2018/06/15 · arxiv updated 2018/06/20 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

Landauer's principle states that erasure of each bit of information in a system requires at least a unit of energy k_BTln2 to be dissipated. In return, the blank bit may possibly be utilized to extract usable work of the amount k_BTln2, in keeping with the second law of thermodynamics. While in principle any collection of spins can be utilized as information storage, work extraction by utilizing this resource in principle requires specialized engines that are capable of using this resource. In this work, we focus on heat and charge transport in a quantum spin Hall device in the presence of a spin bath. We show how a properly initialized nuclear spin subsystem can be used as a memory resource for a Maxwell's demon to harvest available heat energy from the reservoirs to induce charge current that can power an external electrical load. We also show how to initialize the nuclear spin subsystem using applied bias currents which necessarily dissipate energy, hence demonstrating Landauer's principle. This provides an alternative method of ``energy storage'' in an all-electrical device. We finally propose a realistic setup to experimentally observe a Landauer erasure/work extraction cycle.

Citations

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