Experimental realization of a Szilard engine with a single electron

Abstract

Significance A Maxwell demon makes use of information to convert thermal energy of a reservoir into work. A quantitative example is a thought experiment known as a Szilard engine, which uses one bit of information about the position of a thermalized molecule in a box to extract k B T ln 2 of work. The second law of thermodynamics remains valid because, according to Landauer principle, erasure of the information dissipates at least the same amount of heat. Here, we present an experimental realization of a Maxwell demon similar to a Szilard engine, in the form of a single electron box. We provide, to our knowledge, the first demonstration of extracting nearly k B T ln 2 of work for one bit of information.