Magnetic monopole and string excitations in a two-dimensional spin ice

Details Magnetic monopole and string excitations in a two-dimensional spin ice Magnetic monopole and string excitations in a two-dimensional spin ice

2008-09-11

arxiv.org/abs/0809.2105v2

Journal of Applied Physics 106 (2009) 063913

Physics

Condensed Matter

Materials Science

8 pages. Accepted by Journal of Applied Physics (2009)

Scientific paper

10.1063/1.3224870

We study the magnetic excitations of a square lattice spin-ice recently produced in an artificial form, as an array of nanoscale magnets. Our analysis, based upon the dipolar interaction between the nanomagnetic islands, correctly reproduces the ground-state observed experimentally. In addition, we find magnetic monopole-like excitations effectively interacting by means of the usual Coulombic plus a linear confining potential, the latter being related to a string-like excitation binding the monopoles pairs, what indicates that the fractionalization of magnetic dipoles may not be so easy in two dimensions. These findings contrast this material with the three-dimensional analogue, where such monopoles experience only the Coulombic interaction. We discuss, however, two entropic effects that affect the monopole interactions: firstly, the string configurational entropy may loose the string tension and then, free magnetic monopoles should also be found in lower dimensional spin ices; secondly, in contrast to the string configurational entropy, an entropically driven Coulomb force, which increases with temperature, has the opposite effect of confining the magnetic defects.

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