Experimental investigation of noise-assisted information transmission and storage via stochastic resonance

"We present experimental results on the information transmission and storage via stochastic resonance in circuits designed and built around Schmitt triggers (STs). First, we investigate the performance of a transmission line comprised of five STs and show it to exhibit stochastic resonance. Each ST in the line is fed with white Gaussian noise, and the first ST is driven by a non-return-to-zero pseudo-random bit sequence with sub-threshold amplitude. Parameters such as bit error rate (Q-factor) are measured (calculated) and shown to exhibit a minimum (maximum) for an optimum amount of noise. Interestingly, we find that system performance degrades with the number of STs as if the system were linear and impaired only by additive Gaussian noise. We then propose and build a 1-bit storage device based on two STs in a loop configuration. We demonstrate that such a system is capable of storing one bit of information only in the presence of noise, and that there is a regime where the efficiency of such a device increases with increasing noise. Our results point to the feasibility of building 'blocks' that can transmit, store and eventually process information, whose performance is not only robust against noise, but can actually benefit from it. © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved."