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arXiv · 1108.1092

Melting artificial spin ice

Vassilios Kapaklis·Unnar B. Arnalds·Adam Harman-Clarke·Evangelos Th. Papaioannou·Masoud Karimipour·Panagiotis Korelis·Andrea Taroni·Peter C. W. Holdsworth·Steven T. Bramwell·Björgvin Hjörvarsson
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Abstract

Artificial spin ice arrays of micromagnetic islands are a means of engineering additional energy scales and frustration into magnetic materials. Despite much progress in elucidating the properties of such arrays, the `spins' in the systems studied so far have no thermal dynamics as the kinetic constraints are too high. Here we address this problem by using a material with an ordering temperature near room temperature. By measuring the temperature dependent magnetization in different principal directions, and comparing with simulations of idealized statistical mechanical models, we confirm a dynamical `pre-melting' of the artificial spin ice structure at a temperature well below the intrinsic ordering temperature of the island material. We thus create a spin ice array that has real thermal dynamics of the artificial spins over an extended temperature range.

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Vassilios Kapaklis, Unnar B. Arnalds, Adam Harman-Clarke, Evangelos Th. Papaioannou, Masoud Karimipour, Panagiotis Korelis, Andrea Taroni, Peter C. W. Holdsworth, Steven T. Bramwell, Björgvin Hjörvarsson. 2011-08-04. Melting artificial spin ice. https://doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/14/3/035009

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