Landauer limit of energy dissipation in a magnetostrictive particle

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that the Landauer limit of energy dissipation can be achieved in a magnetostrictive nanomagnet system, linking thermodynamics and information theory at the nanoscale.

Contribution

It models magnetization dynamics with stochastic equations to show the Landauer limit is attainable in a shape-anisotropic nanomagnet storing a bit.

Findings

Landauer limit is achievable in a magnetostrictive nanomagnet.

Average energy dissipation meets the Landauer bound.

Stochastic modeling confirms the principle at nanoscale.

Abstract

According to Landauer's principle, a minimum amount of energy proportional to temperature must be dissipated during the erasure of a classical bit of information compensating the entropy loss, thereby linking the information and thermodynamics. Here we show that the Landauer limit of energy dissipation is achievable in a shape-anisotropic single-domain magnetostrictive nanomagnet having two mutually anti-parallel degenerate magnetization states that store a bit of information. We model the magnetization dynamics using stochastic Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert equation in the presence of thermal fluctuations and show that on average the Landauer bound is satisfied, i.e., it accords to the generalized Landauer's principle for small systems with stochastic fluctuations.