Degeneracy and Criticality from Emergent Frustration in Artificial Spin Ice

作者:Chern Gia Wei*; Morrison Muir J; Nisoli Cristiano
来源:Physical Review Letters, 2013, 111(17): 177201.
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevLett.111.177201

摘要

Although initially introduced to mimic the spin-ice pyrochlores, no artificial spin ice has yet exhibited the expected degenerate ice phase with critical correlations similar to the celebrated Coulomb phase in the pyrochlore lattice. Here we study a novel artificial spin ice based on a vertex-frustrated rather than pairwise frustrated geometry and show that it exhibits a quasicritical ice phase of extensive residual entropy and, significantly, algebraic correlations. Interesting in its own regard as a novel realization of frustration in a vertex system, our lattice opens new pathways to study defects in a critical manifold and to design degeneracy in artificial magnetic nanoarrays, a task so far elusive.

  • 出版日期2013-10-22