Reducing Disorder in Artificial Kagome Ice

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that connecting nanoscale magnets in artificial kagome ice reduces coercivity variation from 6% to 3.3%, enabling more accurate simulation of natural spin-ice materials.

Contribution

It introduces a connected structure in artificial kagome ice that significantly narrows coercivity distribution compared to disconnected islands.

Findings

Coercivity variation reduced to 3.3% in connected structures

Disorder in artificial spin ice can be minimized through structural design

Narrower coercivity distribution improves mimicry of natural spin ice

Abstract

Artificial spin ice has become a valuable tool for understanding magnetic interactions on a microscopic level. The strength in the approach lies in the ability of a synthetic array of nanoscale magnets to mimic crystalline materials, composed of atomic magnetic moments. Unfortunately, these nanoscale magnets, patterned from metal alloys, can show substantial variation in relevant quantities such as coercive field, with deviations up to 6%. By carefully studying the reversal process of artificial kagome ice, we can directly measure the distribution of coercivities, and by switching from disconnected islands to a connected structure, we find that the coercivity distribution can achieve a deviation of only 3.3%. These narrow deviations should allow the observation of behavior that mimics canonical spin-ice materials more closely.