Artificial kagome spin ice: dimensional reduction, avalanche control and emergent magnetic monopoles.

Artificial spin-ice systems consisting of nanolithographic arrays of isolated nanomagnets are model systems for the study of frustration-induced phenomena. We have recently demonstrated that monopoles and Dirac strings can be directly observed via synchrotron-based photoemission electron microscopy, where the magnetic state of individual nanoislands can be imaged in real space. These experimental results of Dirac string formation are in excellent agreement with Monte Carlo simulations of the hysteresis of an array of dipoles situated on a kagome lattice with randomized switching fields.

Ultrafast heating as a sufficient stimulus for magnetization reversal in a ferrimagnet.

The question of how, and how fast, magnetization can be reversed is a topic of great practical interest for the manipulation and storage of magnetic information. It is generally accepted that magnetization reversal should be driven by a stimulus represented by time-non-invariant vectors such as a magnetic field, spin-polarized electric current, or cross-product of two oscillating electric fields. However, until now it has been generally assumed that heating alone, not represented as a vector at all, cannot result in a deterministic reversal of magnetization, although it may assist this process.