title: Thermodynamics of emergent magnetic charge screening in artificial spin ice.
abstract: Electric charge screening is a fundamental principle governing the behaviour in a variety of systems in nature. Through reconfiguration of the local environment, the Coulomb attraction between electric charges is decreased, leading, for example, to the creation of polaron states in solids or hydration shells around proteins in water. Here, we directly visualize the real-time creation and decay of screened magnetic charge configurations in a two-dimensional artificial spin ice system, the dipolar dice lattice. By comparing the temperature dependent occurrence of screened and unscreened emergent magnetic charge defects, we determine that screened magnetic charges are indeed a result of local energy reduction and appear as a transient minimum energy state before the system relaxes towards the predicted ground state. These results highlight the important role of emergent magnetic charges in artificial spin ice, giving rise to screened charge excitations and the emergence of exotic low-temperature configurations.
authors: Advanced Light Source, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), 1 Cyclotron Road, Berkeley, California 94720, USA.|NanoSpin, Department of Applied Physics, Aalto University School of Science, P.O. Box 15100, FI-00076 Aalto, Finland.
authors: Alan
authors: 0000-0002-2384-2249
authors: A
authors: Farhan
authors: Advanced Light Source, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), 1 Cyclotron Road, Berkeley, California 94720, USA.
authors: Andreas
authors: A
authors: Scholl
authors: COMP Centre of Excellence, Department of Applied Physics, Aalto University, P.O. Box 11100, FI-00076 Aalto, Espoo, Finland.
authors: Charlotte F
authors: CF
authors: Petersen
authors: Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Genova, via Dodecaneso 33, I-16146 Genova, Italy.
authors: Luca
authors: L
authors: Anghinolfi
authors: Advanced Light Source, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), 1 Cyclotron Road, Berkeley, California 94720, USA.|Department of Emerging Materials Science, Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology (DGIST), Daegu 711-873, Korea.
authors: Clemens
authors: C
authors: Wuth
authors: Molecular Foundry, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), 1 Cyclotron Road, Berkeley, California 94720, USA.
authors: Scott
authors: S
authors: Dhuey
authors: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California, Davis, California 95616, USA.
authors: Rajesh V
authors: 0000-0001-6727-6501
authors: RV
authors: Chopdekar
authors: School of Engineering and Sciences, Adolfo Ibáñez University, Diagonal Las Torres, 2640 Peñalolén, Santiago, Chile.
authors: Paula
authors: P
authors: Mellado
authors: COMP Centre of Excellence, Department of Applied Physics, Aalto University, P.O. Box 11100, FI-00076 Aalto, Espoo, Finland.
authors: Mikko J
authors: MJ
authors: Alava
authors: NanoSpin, Department of Applied Physics, Aalto University School of Science, P.O. Box 15100, FI-00076 Aalto, Finland.
authors: Sebastiaan
authors: S
authors: van Dijken