Device fabrication for investigating Maxwell's Demon at room-temperature using double quantum dot transistors in silicon

Maxwell's Demon and its development by Szilard to a single particle engine, probe the limits of the 2nd law of thermodynamics and demonstrate a link between entropy and information. With advances in nanofabrication techniques, these thought experiments are becoming feasible. Room temperature (RT) dual-gate double quantum dot (DQD) transistors have been fabricated using electron beam lithography and geometric oxidation. Measurements at RT have shown device operation, where hexagonal patterns have been extracted from the charge stability diagram. These patterns imply ideal underlying characteristics and have been simulated in the form of a series DQD transistor. The boundaries of hexagonal regions correspond to a one-electron exchange between the coupled QDs. Carefully defined gate voltage trajectories crossing these boundaries show the behaviour of Szilard's engine and an identical minimum entropy of -k(B) In 2. These results suggest that DQD devices, even those that operate at RT, can be used to investigate the limits of the 2nd law of thermodynamics.

麦克斯韦妖以及西拉德将其发展为单粒子引擎的理论，探究了热力学第二定律的极限，并展示了熵与信息之间的联系。随着纳米制造技术的进步，这些思想实验正变得可行。利用电子束光刻和几何氧化技术已经制造出了室温（RT）双栅双量子点（DQD）晶体管。在室温下的测量显示了器件的运行情况，从电荷稳定性图中提取出了六边形图案。这些图案意味着理想的潜在特性，并且已经以串联DQD晶体管的形式进行了模拟。六边形区域的边界对应于耦合量子点之间的单电子交换。精心定义的穿过这些边界的栅极电压轨迹显示了西拉德引擎的行为以及相同的 -k(B)ln2的最小熵。这些结果表明，DQD器件，即使是那些在室温下运行的器件，也可用于研究热力学第二定律的极限。