09/2018
Observation of order-by-disorder phenomena in XY macro spin lattices
The appeal of geometric frustration is fueled by exotic physical behaviors originating from a macroscopic ground state degeneracy, which manifest spin ices, spin glasses, quantum spin liquids, vortices, Skyrmions, and Hopfions. In our work, we investigate magnetic phases and correlations of planar XY macro spin lattices and report the experimental observation of magnetic ground states through direct imaging, predicted three decades ago. The possibility to fabricate and investigate XY dipolar systems at the micro scale opens up a new avenue in the field of artificial spin ice toward XY spins, spin liquids, Kitaev’s XYZ honeycomb lattices, and magnonics with tunable interactions.
The work was carried out in collaboration with Berkeley Lab's Advanced Light Source, Molecular Foundry, and Materials Sciences Division.
The original work was published in Nano Lett. 18, 7428 (2018). 🔗
It is featured as a cover art.
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