Information and Thermodynamics: Fast and Precise Approach to Landauer’s Bound in an Underdamped Micromechanical Oscillator

The Landauer principle states that at least k₁Tln2 of energy is required to erase a 1-bit memory, with k₁T the thermal energy of the system. We study the effects of inertia on this bound using as one-bit memory an underdamped micromechanical oscillator confined in a double-well potential created by a feedback loop. The potential barrier is precisely tunable in the few k₁T range. We measure, within the stochastic thermodynamic framework, the work and the heat of the erasure protocol. We demonstrate experimentally and theoretically that, in this underdamped system, the Landauer bound is reached with a 1% uncertainty, with protocols as short as 100 ms.