Information and thermodynamics: fast and precise approach to Landauer's bound in an underdamped micro-mechanical oscillator

2021/02/28 by Salambô Dago, Jorge Pereda, Nicolas Barros +2 · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #cond-mat.stat-mech

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.126.170601

published as Phys. Rev. Lett. 126, 170601 (2021)

arxiv created 2021/05/25 · arxiv updated 2021/05/26

Abstract

The Landauer principle states that at least k_B T ln 2 of energy is required to erase a 1-bit memory, with k_B T the thermal energy of the system. We study the effects of inertia on this bound using as one-bit memory an underdamped micro-mechanical oscillator confined in a double-well potential created by a feedback loop. The potential barrier is precisely tunable in the few k_B T range. We measure, within the stochastic thermodynamic framework, the work and the heat of the erasure protocol. We demonstrate experimentally and theoretically that, in this underdamped system, the Landauer bound is reached with a 1 % uncertainty, with protocols as short as 100 ms.

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