Accessing low-energy magnetic microstates in symmetry-broken isolated square artificial spin ice vertices with magnetic field

Abstract

In artificial spin ice systems, an interplay of defects and dipolar interactions is expected to play important roles in stabilizing different collective magnetic states. In this work, we investigated the magnetization reversal of individual defective square artificial spin ice vertices where defects break four-fold rotational symmetry of the system. By varying the angle between the applied field and the geometrical axis of the vertices, we observe a change in energy landscape of the system resulting into the stabilization of collective low-energy magnetic states. We also observe that by changing the angle, it is possible to access different vertex configurations. Micromagnetic simulations are performed for varying angle as well as external field, the results of which are consistent with the experimental data.

9 pages, 4 figures and 2 tables

References in corpus (4)

• Artificial "spin ice" in a geometrically frustrated lattice of nanoscale ferromagnetic islands
• Vertex dynamics in finite two dimensional square spin ices
• On the micromagnetic behavior of dipolar-coupled nanomagnets in defective square artificial spin ice systems
• Magnetization reversal of dipolar coupled nanomagnets studied by two-dimensional electron gas based micro-Hall magnetometry

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Field-tunable interactions and frustration in underlayer-mediated artificial spin ice
• Controlled creation and annihilation of stringless robust emergent magnetic monopoles in artificial spin ice
• Relaxation pathways and emergence of domains in square artificial spin ice
• Field-driven Reversal Models in Artificial Spin Ice