No Arabic abstract
We have performed a detailed study of thermal annealing of the moment configuration in artificial spin ice. Permalloy (Ni$_{80}$Fe$_{20}$) artificial spin ice samples were examined in the prototypical square ice geometry, studying annealing as a function of island thickness, island shape, and annealing temperature and duration. We also measured the Curie temperature as a function of film thickness, finding that thickness has a strong effect on the Curie temperature in regimes of relevance to many studies of the dynamics of artificial spin ice systems. Increasing the interaction energy between island moments and reducing the energy barrier to flipping the island moments allows the system to more closely approach the collective low energy state of the moments upon annealing, suggesting new channels for understanding the thermalization processes in these important model systems.
Magnetization dynamics in an artificial square spin-ice lattice made of Ni80Fe20 with magnetic field applied in the lattice plane is investigated by broadband ferromagnetic resonance spectroscopy. The experimentally observed dispersion shows a rich spectrum of modes corresponding to different magnetization states. These magnetization states are determined by exchange and dipolar interaction between individual islands, as is confirmed by a semianalytical model. In the low field regime below 400 Oe a hysteretic behavior in the mode spectrum is found. Micromagnetic simulations reveal that the origin of the observed spectra is due to the initialization of different magnetization states of individual nanomagnets. Our results indicate that it might be possible to determine the spin-ice state by resonance experiments and are a first step towards the understanding of artificial geometrically frustrated magnetic systems in the high-frequency regime.
We report the dependence of the magnetization dynamics in a square artificial spin-ice lattice on the in-plane magnetic field angle. Using two complementary measurement techniques - broadband ferromagnetic resonance and micro-focused Brillouin light scattering spectroscopy - we systematically study the evolution of the lattice dynamics, both for a coherent radiofrequency excitation and an incoherent thermal excitation of spin dynamics. We observe a splitting of modes facilitated by inter-element interactions that can be controlled by the external field angle and magnitude. Detailed time-dependent micromagnetic simulations reveal that the split modes are localized in different regions of the square network. This observation suggests that it is possible to disentangle modes with different spatial profiles by tuning the external field configuration.
Artificial square spin ices are structures composed of magnetic elements arranged on a geometrically frustrated lattice and located on the sites of a two-dimensional square lattice, such that there are four interacting magnetic elements at each vertex. Using a semi-analytical approach, we show that square spin ices exhibit a rich spin wave band structure that is tunable both by external magnetic fields and the configuration of individual elements. Internal degrees of freedom can give rise to equilibrium states with bent magnetization at the edges leading to characteristic excitations; in the presence of magnetostatic interactions these form separate bands analogous to impurity bands in semiconductors. Full-scale micromagnetic simulations corroborate our semi-analytical approach. Our results show that artificial square spin ices can be viewed as reconfigurable and tunable magnonic crystals that can be used as metamaterials for spin-wave-based applications at the nanoscale.
Geometrical frustration in magnetic materials often gives rise to exotic, low-temperature states of matter, like the ones observed in spin ices. Here we report the imaging of the magnetic states of a thermally-active artificial magnetic ice that reveal the fingerprints of a spin fragmentation process. This fragmentation corresponds to a splitting of the magnetic degree of freedom into two channels and is evidenced in both real and reciprocal space. Furthermore, the internal organization of both channels is interpreted within the framework of a hybrid spin-charge model that directly emerges from the parent spin model of the kagome dipolar spin ice. Our experimental and theoretical results provide insights into the physics of frustrated magnets and deepen our understanding of emergent fields through the use of tailor-made magnetism.
We present results of ferromagnetic resonance (FMR) experiments and micromagnetic simulations for a distorted, 2D Kagome artificial spin ice. The distorted structure is created by continuously modulating the 2D primitive lattice translation vectors of a periodic honeycomb lattice, according to an aperiodic Fibonacci sequence used to generate 1D quasicrystals. Experimental data and micromagnetic simulations show the Fibonacci distortion causes broadening and splitting of FMR modes into multiple branches, which accompany the increasing number of segment lengths and orientations that develop with increasing distortion. When the applied field is increased in the opposite direction to the net magnetization of a segment, spin wave modes appear, disappear or suddenly shift, to signal segment magnetization reversal events. These results show the complex behavior of reversal events, as well as well-defined frequencies and frequency-field slopes of FMR modes, can be precisely tuned by varying the severity of the aperiodic lattice distortion. This type of distorted structure could therefore provide a new tool for the design of complicated magnonic systems.