Abstract
We analyze the rotational demagnetization of artificial spin ice, a recently realized array of nanoscale single-domain ferromagnetic islands. Demagnetization does not anneal this model system into its antiferromagnetic ground state: the moments have a static disordered configuration similar to the frozen state of the spin ice materials. We demonstrate that this athermal system has an effective extensive degeneracy and we introduce a formalism that can predict the populations of local states in this icelike system with no adjustable parameters.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Article number | 217203 |
| Journal | Physical review letters |
| Volume | 98 |
| Issue number | 21 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - May 23 2007 |
| Externally published | Yes |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Physics and Astronomy