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Cited by 1,248Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical MechanicsAdvanced Thermodynamic Systems and EnginesCellular Automata and Applications

Experimental verification of Landauer’s principle linking information and thermodynamics

Bérut, Antoine, Arakelyan, Artak, Petrosyan, Artyom, Ciliberto, Sergio, Dillenschneider, Raoul, Lutz, Eric·2012·Nature
DOI 10.1038/nature10872
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Abstract

In 1961, Rolf Landauer argued that the erasure of information is a dissipative process. A minimal quantity of heat, proportional to the thermal energy and called the Landauer bound, is necessarily produced when a classical bit of information is deleted. A direct consequence of this logically irreversible transformation is that the entropy of the environment increases by a finite amount. Despite its fundamental importance for information theory and computer science, the erasure principle has not been verified experimentally so far, the main obstacle being the difficulty of doing single-particle experiments in the low-dissipation regime. Here we experimentally show the existence of the Landauer bound in a generic model of a one-bit memory. Using a system of a single colloidal particle trapped in a modulated double-well potential, we establish that the mean dissipated heat saturates at the Landauer bound in the limit of long erasure cycles. This result demonstrates the intimate link between information theory and thermodynamics. It further highlights the ultimate physical limit of irreversible computation.

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Crossref · 10.1038/nature10872

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  • In the classical erasure experiment of Bérut et al, the Landauer limit is approached only asymptotically with increasing cycle duration.

    “In fact, as shown in [272] where the erasure protocol was classical, they approach the Landauer limit only asymptotically with increasing cycle duration.”

    From Quantum speed limits: from Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle to optimal quantum control (2017) · cites this paper as [272]

  • Bérut et al performed the first experiment verifying Landauer's bound, using a single colloidal particle in a time-dependent double well potential, and achieved Landauer-limited bit erasure.

    “The first experiment was performed by Bérut et al [272], where they used a single colloidal particle trapped in a time-dependent double well potential.By modulating and tilting the potential slowly enough they were able to achieve Landauer limited bit erasure.”

    From Quantum speed limits: from Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle to optimal quantum control (2017) · cites this paper as [272]

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Authors
Bérut, A., Arakelyan, A., Petrosyan, A., Ciliberto, S., Dillenschneider, R., & Lutz, E.
Affiliations
  • École Normale Supérieure de Lyon (FR)
  • University of Kaiserslautern (DE)
  • University of Augsburg (DE)
Corresponding author
Lutz, Eric
ORCID
Venue
Nature
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Published
2012-03
Volume
483
Issue
7388
Pages
187-189
ISSN
  • 0028-0836 (ISSN-L)
  • 1476-4687
DOI
10.1038/nature10872
OpenAlex
W2154550634
Cited by
1,248
References
35
Citations by year
2026: 105 · 2025: 97 · 2024: 78 · 2023: 86 · 2022: 93 · 2021: 59 · 2020: 70 · 2019: 73 · 2018: 89 · 2017: 107 · 2016: 109 · 2015: 92 · 2014: 87 · 2013: 62 · 2012: 40
FWCI
68.14
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
Locations
  • Nature (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • HAL (submittedVersion)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
Funders
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Statistical and Nonlinear Physics › Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics
  • Physical Sciences › Engineering › Mechanical Engineering › Advanced Thermodynamic Systems and Engines
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computational Theory and Mathematics › Cellular Automata and Applications
Keywords
Landauer's principle, information erasure, heat dissipation, entropy production, bistable potential, double-well potential, irreversible computation, Maxwell's demon, information and thermodynamics

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