Towards a bolometric measurement of the heat of erasure in superconducting logic

In his seminal 1961 paper, Landauer derived a lower bound on the heat dissipation by any computing device per irreversible logical operation, such as erasing (resetting) a bit. I will outline a new approach for an unencumbered measurement of the heat of bit erasure using a superconducting flux qubit and an ultrasensitive bolometer. First, using a gradiometric flux qubit as the physical bit subsystem, I will revisit a classical trajectory-tracking demonstration of efficient bit erasure. Owing to the high intrinsic speed of superconducting flux logic, we are able to extract a high-resolution histogram of the work exerted on the system during an erasure cycle. The experimental work histogram display universal features expected for a generic efficient implementation of bit erasure. In addition, the experimental work distributions enable us to test recently-discovered Fractional Fluctuation Theorems, generalizing Landauer’s erasure bound. Second, I will argue that a combination of superconducting logic cell and a bolometer is an ideal way to measure the heat of erasure through its effect on the dissipative environment.