Speaker
Description
Artificial spin ices (ASIs) are nanostructured arrays of ferromagnetic elements designed to study frustration and emergent phenomena. ASI studies have largely been confined to two-dimensional lattice geometries. A recent study has extended ASIs to three dimensions, with a buckyball-shaped arrangement of nanomagnets. Inspired by this study, we investigate ASIs in various polyhedral geometries: the five Platonic solids (tetrahedron, cube, octahedron, dodecahedron, icosahedron) and one particular Archimedean solid, the cuboctahedron. Each polyhedron is modelled as a collection of bar magnets along its edges. Due to strong shape anisotropy, the magnets are Ising-like with two possible orientations. We enumerate all possible magnetic configurations and calculate their energies from dipolar interactions. Using the canonical ensemble approach, we study their properties as a function of temperature. We see two properties that ‘emerge’ at low temperatures: (i) the ice-rule constraint and (ii) chirality on polygonal faces. Our results may guide experimental studies on ASI construction, thermal properties and dynamics.
| Keyword-1 | Artificial spin ice |
|---|---|
| Keyword-2 | Dipolar interaction |
| Keyword-3 | Phase transitions |