Bovo, L;
Moya, X;
Prabhakaran, D;
Soh, YA;
Boothroyd, AT;
Mathur, ND;
Aeppli, G;
(2014)
Restoration of the third law in spin ice thin films.
Nat Commun
, 5
, Article 3439. 10.1038/ncomms4439.
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Abstract
A characteristic feature of spin ice is its apparent violation of the third law of thermodynamics. This leads to a number of interesting properties including the emergence of an effective vacuum for magnetic monopoles and their currents - magnetricity. Here we add a new dimension to the experimental study of spin ice by fabricating thin epitaxial films of Dy2Ti2O7, varying between 5 and 60 monolayers on an inert substrate. The films show the distinctive characteristics of spin ice at temperatures >2 K, but at lower temperature we find evidence of a zero entropy state. This restoration of the third law in spin ice thin films is consistent with a predicted strain-induced ordering of a very unusual type, previously discussed for analogous electrical systems. Our results show how the physics of frustrated pyrochlore magnets such as spin ice may be significantly modified in thin-film samples.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Restoration of the third law in spin ice thin films. |
| Location: | England |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1038/ncomms4439 |
| Publisher version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms4439 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © 2014 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons. org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences > Dept of Physics and Astronomy |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1421650 |
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