Year: 2014
Type: article
Abstract: Artificial spin ice is a frustrated magnetic two-dimensional nano-material, recently employed to study variety of tailor-designed unusual collective behaviours. Recently proposed extensions to three dimensions are based on self-assembly techniques and allow little control over geometry and disorder. We present a viable design for the realization of a three-dimensional artificial spin ice with the same level of precision and control allowed by lithographic nano-fabrication of the popular two-dimensional case. Our geometry is based on layering already available two-dimensional artificial spin ice and leads to an arrangement of ice-rule-frustrated units which is topologically equivalent to that of the tetrahedra in a pyrochlore lattice. Consequently, we show, it exhibits a genuine ice phase and its excitations are, as in natural spin ice materials, magnetic monopoles interacting via Coulomb law.
Source: Applied Physics Letters
DOI: 10.1063/1.4861118
Authors: Gia-Wei Chern, Charles Reichhardt, Cristiano Nisoli
Institution: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Language: English
Subfield: Condensed Matter Physics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funder: U.S. Department of Energy
Award: G286898171
OpenAlex ID: W1977511128