Title: Classical topological order in the kinetics of artificial spin ice

Journal Article · · Nature Physics
 [1]; ORCiD logo [2];  [3];  [1]; ORCiD logo [1];  [4];  [5];  [6];  [3]; ORCiD logo [3];  [1]
  1. Univ. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL (United States). Dept. of Physics, and Frederick Seitz Materials Research Lab.
  2. Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States). Theoretical Division, Inst. for Materials Science, and Center for Nonlinear Studies
  3. Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
  4. Univ. of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN (United States). Dept. of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science; Univ. of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN (United States). School of Physics and Astronomy
  5. Univ. of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN (United States). Dept. of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
  6. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)

Systems of interacting nanomagnets known as artificial spin ice have allowed the design, realization and study of geometrically frustrated exotic collective states that are absent in natural magnets. We have experimentally measured the thermally induced moment fluctuations in the Shakti geometry of artificial spin ice. We show that its disordered moment configuration is a topological phase described by an emergent dimer-cover model with excitations that can be characterized as topologically charged defects. Examination of the low-energy dynamics of the system confirms that these effective topological charges have long lifetimes associated with their topological protection, that is, they can be created and annihilated only as charge pairs with opposite sign and are kinetically constrained. Here, this manifestation of classical topological order demonstrates that geometrical design in nanomagnetic systems can lead to emergent, topologically protected kinetics that can limit pathways to equilibration and ergodicity.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Program; USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES) (SC-22). Materials Sciences & Engineering Division
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-05CH11231; AC52-06NA25396; SC0010778
OSTI ID:
1479948
Report Number(s):
LA-UR--17-29552
Journal Information:
Nature Physics, Journal Name: Nature Physics Journal Issue: 7 Vol. 14; ISSN 1745-2473
Publisher:
Nature Publishing Group (NPG)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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Cited By (12)

Ice rule fragility via topological charge transfer in artificial colloidal ice journal October 2018
Ice rule fragility via topological charge transfer in artificial colloidal ice journal October 2018
Topological defects produce exotic mechanics in complex metamaterials journal January 2020
Advances in artificial spin ice journal November 2019
Understanding thermal annealing of artificial spin ice journal November 2019
On the micromagnetic behavior of dipolar-coupled nanomagnets in defective square artificial spin ice systems journal December 2019
Intermediate phase and pseudo phase transition in an artificial spin ice model journal July 2019
Dipolar Cairo lattice: Geometrical frustration and short-range correlations journal October 2019
Colloquium : Ice rule and emergent frustration in particle ice and beyond journal December 2019
Ice Rule Fragility via Topological Charge Transfer in Artificial Colloidal Ice text January 2018
Intermediate phase and pseudo phase transition in an artificial spin ice model text January 2019
Understanding Thermal Annealing of Artificial Spin Ice text January 2019