Related Experiment Video
Updated: Apr 24, 2026

Silicon Metal-oxide-semiconductor Quantum Dots for Single-electron Pumping
Published on: June 3, 2015
Experimental realization of a Szilard engine with a single electron
Jonne V Koski1, Ville F Maisi2, Jukka P Pekola3
1Low Temperature Laboratory, Aalto University, FI-00076, Aalto, Finland; jonne.koski@aalto.fi.
Abstract:
The most succinct manifestation of the second law of thermodynamics is the limitation imposed by the Landauer principle on the amount of heat a Maxwell demon (MD) can convert into free energy per single bit of information obtained in a measurement. We propose and realize an electronic MD based on a single-electron box operated as a Szilard engine, where kBT ln 2 of heat is extracted 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.
Related Concept Videos
The Joule and Joule–Thomson Experiments
Thomson's e/m Experiment
A particle with charge q, speed v, and mass m enters an area from the top, where the magnetic and electric fields are perpendicular both to the particle's motion and to one another. The magnetic...
Heat Engines
Whenever we consider heat engines (and associated devices such as refrigerators and heat pumps), we do not use the standard sign convention for heat and work. For convenience, we assume that the symbols Qh, Qc, and W represent only the amounts of heat transferred...
Electron Orbital Model
The first shell is closest to the nucleus, and it has only one subshell with a single spherical orbital called the...
Transmission Electron Microscopy
The Quantum-Mechanical Model of an Atom

