A memory device sustained by noise

Abstract

We propose a memory device consisting of a ring of two bistable coupled oscillators. We show that this system is capable of storing a single bit and its performance improves with noise, in agreement with previous experimental results obtained with discrete bistable electronic circuits. The stored bit can be retrieved asynchronously and, after a certain synchronization time, the probability of error does not depend on the interrogated oscillator. Memory persistence is shown to be maximized for the same noise range that both minimizes the probability of error and ensures synchronization.