Low Temperature Laboratory, OVLL, Aalto University, PO Box 15100, FI-00076 Aalto, Finland.
Phys Rev Lett. 2012 Nov 2;109(18):180601. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.109.180601. Epub 2012 Oct 31.
Recent progress on micro- and nanometer-scale manipulation has opened the possibility to probe systems small enough that thermal fluctuations of energy and coordinate variables can be significant compared with their mean behavior. We present an experimental study of nonequilibrium thermodynamics in a classical two-state system, namely, a metallic single-electron box. We have measured with high statistical accuracy the distribution of dissipated energy as single electrons are transferred between the box electrodes. The obtained distributions obey Jarzynski and Crooks fluctuation relations. A comprehensive microscopic theory exists for the system, enabling the experimental distributions to be reproduced without fitting parameters.
微纳尺度操作的最新进展使得人们有可能探测到足够小的系统，在这些系统中，能量和坐标变量的热涨落与它们的平均行为相比可以变得显著。我们介绍了在一个经典的双态系统，即金属单电子盒中，对非平衡热力学的一个实验研究。我们以高统计精度测量了单电子在盒电极之间转移时耗散能量的分布。所得到的分布服从 Jarzynski 和 Crooks 涨落关系。该系统存在一个全面的微观理论，可以在不拟合参数的情况下再现实验分布。
