arXiv subjects

C. Nisoli

Publications and source records attributed to C. Nisoli.

13 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2023

Deconstructing Magnetization Noise: Degeneracies, Phases, and Mobile Fractionalized Excitations in Tetris Artificial Spin Ice

Direct detection of spontaneous spin fluctuations, or "magnetization noise", is emerging as a powerful means of revealing and studying magnetic excitations in both natural and artificial frustrated magnets. Depending on the lattice and nature of the frustration, these excitations can often be described as fractionalized quasiparticles possessing an effective magnetic charge. Here, by combining ultrasensitive optical detection of thermodynamic magnetization noise with Monte Carlo simulations, we reveal emergent regimes of magnetic excitations in artificial "tetris ice". A marked increase of the intrinsic noise at certain applied magnetic fields heralds the spontaneous proliferation of fractionalized excitations, which can diffuse independently, without cost in energy, along specific quasi-1D spin chains in the tetris ice lattice.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2022

Magnetic-Field-Dependent Thermodynamic Properties of Square and Quadrupolar Artificial Spin Ice

Applied magnetic fields are an important tuning parameter for artificial spin ice (ASI) systems, as they can drive phase transitions between different magnetic ground states, or tune through regimes with high populations of emergent magnetic excitations (e.g., monopole-like quasiparticles). Here, using simulations supported by experiments, we investigate the thermodynamic properties and magnetic phases of square and quadrupolar ASI as a function of applied in-plane magnetic fields. Monte Carlo simulations are used to generate field-dependent maps of the magnetization, the magnetic specific heat, the thermodynamic magnetization fluctuations, and the magnetic order parameters, all under equilibrium conditions. These maps reveal the diversity of magnetic orderings and the phase transitions that occur in different regions of the phase diagrams of these ASIs, and are experimentally supported by magneto-optical measurements of the equilibrium "magnetization noise" in thermally-active ASIs.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2021

Directed Motion of Liquid Crystal Skyrmions With Oscillating Fields

Using continuum simulations, we show that under a sinusoidal electric field, liquid crystal skyrmions undergo periodic shape oscillations which produce controlled directed motion. The speed of the skyrmion is non-monotonic in the frequency of the applied field, and exhibits multiple reversals of the motion as a function of changing frequency. We map out the dynamical regime diagram of the forward and reverse motion for two superimposed ac driving frequencies, and show that the reversals and directed motion can occur even when only a single ac driving frequency is present. Using pulsed ac driving, we demonstrate that the motion arises due to an asymmetry in the relaxation times of the skyrmion shape. We discuss the connection between our results and ratchet effects observed in systems without asymmetric substrates.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2020

Field-Induced Magnetic Monopole Plasma in Artificial Spin Ice

Artificial spin ices (ASIs) are interacting arrays of lithographically-defined nanomagnets in which novel frustrated magnetic phases can be intentionally designed. A key emergent description of fundamental excitations in ASIs is that of magnetic monopoles -- mobile quasiparticles that carry an effective magnetic charge. Here we demonstrate that the archetypal square ASI lattice can host, in specific regions of its magnetic phase diagram, high-density plasma-like regimes of mobile magnetic monopoles. By passively "listening" to spontaneous monopole noise in thermal equilibrium, we reveal their intrinsic dynamics and show that monopole kinetics are minimally correlated (that is, most diffusive) in the plasma phase. These results open the door to on-demand monopole regimes having field-tunable densities and dynamic properties, thereby providing a new paradigm for probing the physics of effective magnetic charges in synthetic matter.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2019

Commensurate States and Pattern Switching via Liquid Crystal Skyrmions Trapped in a Square Lattice

Using continuum based simulations we show that a rich variety of skyrmion liquid crystal states can be realized in the presence of a periodic obstacle array. As a function of the number of skyrmions per obstacle we find hexagonal, square, dimer, trimer and quadrimer ordering, where the $n$-mer structures are a realization of a molecular crystal state of skyrmions. As a function of external field and obstacle radius we show that there are transitions between the different crystalline states as well as mixed and disordered structures. We discuss how these states are related to commensurate effects seen in other systems, such as vortices in type-II superconductors and colloids interacting with two dimensional substrates.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2019

Quenched Dynamics of Artificial Spin Ice: Coarsening versus Kibble-Zurek

Artificial spin ices are ideal frustrated model systems in which to explore or design emergent phenomena with unprecedented characterization of the constituent degrees of freedom. In square spin ice, violations of the ice rule are topological excitations essential to the kinetics of the system, providing an ideal testbed for studying the dynamics of such defects under varied quench rates. In this work we describe the first test of the Kibble-Zurek mechanism and critical coarsening in colloidal square and colloidal hexagonal ice under quenches from a weakly interacting liquid state into a strongly interacting regime. As expected, for infinitely slow quenches, the system is defect free, while for increasing quench rate, an increasing number of defects remain in the sample. For square ice, we find regimes in which the defect population decreases as a power law with decreasing quench rate. A detailed scaling analysis shows that for a wide range of parameters, including quench rates that are accessible by experiments, the behavior is described by critical coarsening rather than by the Kibble-Zurek mechanism, since the defect-defect interactions are long ranged. For quenches closer to the critical point, however, there can be a competition between the two mechanisms.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2018

Experimental and theoretical evidences for the ice regime in planar artificial spin ices

In this work, we explore a kind of geometrical effect in the thermodynamics of artificial spin ices (ASI). In general, such artificial materials are athermal. Here, We demonstrate that geometrically driven dynamics in ASI can open up the panorama of exploring distinct ground states and thermally magnetic monopole excitations. It is shown that a particular ASI lattice will provide a richer thermodynamics with nanomagnet spins experiencing less restriction to flip precisely in a kind of rhombic lattice. This can be observed by analysis of only three types of rectangular artificial spin ices (RASI). Denoting the horizontal and vertical lattice spacings by a and b, respectively, then, a RASI material can be described by its aspect ratio $γ$=a/b. The rhombic lattice emerges when $γ$=$\sqrt{3}$. So, by comparing the impact of thermal effects on the spin flips in these three appropriate different RASI arrays, it is possible to find a system very close to the ice regime.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2017

The Inner Phases of Colloidal Hexagonal Ice

Using numerical simulations that mimic recent experiments on hexagonal colloidal ice, we show that colloidal hexagonal artificial spin ice exhibits an inner phase within its ice state that has not been observed previously. Under increasing colloid-colloid repulsion, the initially paramagnetic system crosses into a disordered ice-regime, then forms a topologically charge ordered state with disordered colloids, and finally reaches a three-fold degenerate, ordered ferromagnetic state. This is reminiscent of, yet distinct from, the inner phases of the magnetic kagome spin ice analog. The difference in the inner phases of the two systems is explained by their difference in energetics and frustration.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2016

Dynamic Control of Topological Defects in Artificial Colloidal Ice

We demonstrate the use of an external field to stabilize and control defect lines connecting topological monopoles in spin ice. For definiteness we perform Brownian dynamics simulations with realistic units mimicking experimentally realized artificial colloidal spin ice systems, and show how defect lines can grow, shrink or move under the action of direct and alternating fields. Asymmetric alternating biasing fields can cause the defect line to ratchet in either direction, making it possible to precisely position the line at a desired location. Such manipulation could be employed to achieve fast, dense, and mobile information storage in these metamaterials.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2010

Comparing artificial frustrated magnets: tuning symmetry in nanomagnet arrays

We study the impact of geometry on magnetostatically frustrated single-domain nanomagnet arrays. We examine square and hexagonal lattice arrays, as well as a brickwork geometry that combines the anisotropy of the square lattice and the topology of the hexagonal lattice. We find that the more highly frustrated hexagonal lattice allows for the most thorough minimization of the magnetostatic energy, and that the pair-wise correlations between moments differ qualitatively between hexagonal and brickwork lattices, although they share the same lattice topology. The results indicate that the symmetry of local interaction is more important than overall lattice topology in the accommodation of frustrated interactions.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2008

Energy minimization and AC demagnetization in a nanomagnet array

We study AC demagnetization in frustrated arrays of single-domain ferromagnetic islands, exhaustively resolving every (Ising-like) magnetic degree of freedom in the systems. Although the net moment of the arrays is brought near zero by a protocol with sufficiently small step size, the final magnetostatic energy of the demagnetized array continues to decrease for finer-stepped protocols and does not extrapolate to the ground state energy. The resulting complex disordered magnetic state can be described by a maximum-entropy ensemble constrained to satisfy just nearest-neighbor correlations.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2007

Demagnetization Protocols for Frustrated Interacting Nanomagnet Arrays

We report a study of demagnetization protocols for frustrated arrays of interacting single domain permalloy nanomagnets by rotating the arrays in a changing magnetic field. The most effective demagnetization is achieved by not only stepping the field strength down while the sample is rotating, but by combining each field step with an alternation in the field direction. By contrast, linearly decreasing the field strength or stepping the field down without alternating the field direction leaves the arrays with a larger remanent magnetic moment. These results suggest that non-monotonic variations in field magnitude around and below the coercive field are important for the demagnetization process.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2006

Artificial "spin ice" in a geometrically frustrated lattice of nanoscale ferromagnetic islands

We report an artificial geometrically frustrated magnet based on an array of lithographically fabricated single-domain ferromagnetic islands. The islands are arranged such that the dipole interactions create a two-dimensional analogue to spin ice. Images of the magnetic moments of individual elements in this correlated system allow us to study the local accommodation of frustration. We see both ice-like short-range correlations and an absence of long-range correlations, behaviour which is strikingly similar to the lowtemperature state of spin ice. These results demonstrate that artificial frustrated magnets can provide an uncharted arena in which the physics of frustration can be directly visualized.

cond-mat.dis-nn↗