Spin Ice Thin Film: Surface Ordering, Partial Magnetic Wetting and Emergent Square Ice

Abstract

Motivated by recent realizations of Dy${}_2$Ti${}_2$O${}_7$ and Ho${}_2$Ti${}_2$O${}_7$ spin ice thin films, and more generally by the physics of confined gauge fields, we study a model of spin ice thin film with surfaces perpendicular to the $[001]$ cubic axis. The resulting open boundaries make half of the bonds on the interfaces inequivalent. By tuning the strength of these inequivalent "orphan" bonds, dipolar interactions induce a surface ordering equivalent to a two-dimensional crystallization of magnetic surface charges. This surface ordering can also be expected on the surfaces of bulk crystals. In analogy with partial wetting in soft matter, spins just below the surface are more correlated than in the bulk, but \emph{not} ordered. For ultrathin films made of one cubic unit cell, once the surfaces are ordered, a square ice phase is stabilized over a finite temperature window, as confirmed by its entropy and the presence of pinch points in the structure factor. Ultimately, the square ice degeneracy is lifted at lower temperature and the system orders in analogy with the well-known $F$-transition of the $6$-vertex model.

6 pages, 4 figures

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• Magnetic Charge Propagation upon a 3D Artificial Spin-ice
• Emergent Electrochemistry in Spin Ice: Debye-Hückel Theory and Beyond
• Proposal for the Detection of Magnetic Monopoles in Spin Ice via Nanoscale Magnetometry
• Exploring the phases of 3D artificial spin ice: From Coulomb phase to magnetic monopole crystal
• Spin ice thin films: Large-N theory and Monte Carlo simulations
• Classical topological order of the Rys F-model and its breakdown in realistic spin ice: Topological sectors of Faraday loops
• Fragmented spin ice and multi-$k$ ordering in rare-earth antiperovskites
• Modification of Spin Ice Physics in Ho${}_2$Ti${}_2$O${}_7$ Thin Films
• The Classical Heisenberg Model on the Centred Pyrochlore Lattice
• [111]-strained spin ice: Localization of thermodynamically deconfined monopoles
• Tunable critical correlations in kagome ice
• Experimental Measures of Topological Sector Fluctuations in the F-Model
• Probing ice-rule-breaking transition in $\mathrm{D}{\mathrm{y}}_2\mathrm{T}{\mathrm{i}}_2{\mathrm{O}}_7$ thin film by proximitized transport and magnetic torque
• Ferromagnetic fragmented state in the pyrochlore Ho${}_2$Ru${}_2$O${}_7$
• Entropic magnetic interlayer coupling
• Anisotropic Spin Ice on a Breathing Pyrochlore Lattice
• Hearing the light: stray-field noise from the emergent photon in quantum spin ice