Emergence and mobility of monopoles in a unidirectional arrangement of magnetic nanoislands.

Abstract

Magnetricity, the magnetic equivalent of electricity, was recently verified experimentally for the first time. Indeed, like the stream of electric charges that produces electric current, emergent magnetic monopoles have been observed to roam freely in geometrically frustrated magnets known as spin ice. However, such phenomena demand extreme physical conditions, say, a single spin ice crystal has to be cooled to very low temperature, around 0.36 K. Candidates to overcome this difficulty are their artificial analogues, the so-called artificial spin ices. Here, we demonstrate that a specific unidirectional arrangement of nanoislands yields a peculiar system where magnetic monopoles emerge and are constrained to move along aligned dipoles, providing an ordered flow of magnetic charges at room temperature.