English

Experimental realization of a Szilard engine with a single electron

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics 2015-01-29 v1

Abstract

The most succinct manifestation of the second law of thermodynamics is the limitation the Landauer principle imposes on the amount of heat a Maxwell demon (MD) can convert into free energy per single bit of information obtained in a measurement. We suggest and experimentally realize a reversible electronic MD based on a single-electron box operated as a Szilard engine, providing the first demonstration of this limitation: extraction of kT ln 2 of heat from the reservoir at temperature T per one bit of created information. The information is encoded in the position of an extra electron in the box.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1402.5907,
  title  = {Experimental realization of a Szilard engine with a single electron},
  author = {J. V. Koski and V. F. Maisi and J. P. Pekola and D. V. Averin},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1402.5907},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

Main text 5 pages, 3 figures, supplementary material 2 pages, 3 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-22T03:14:38.449Z