Publications Repository - Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf

Artificial spin ices are periodic arrangements of interacting nanomagnets that have been successfully used to investigate emergent phenomena in the presence of geometric frustration. Recently, it has become clear that artificial spin ices equally have the potential to be used as building blocks for creating functional materials, such as magnonic crystals and ratchets, in addition to supporting a large number of programmable magnetic states. In this context, we investigate the magnetization dynamics in a system exhibiting asymmetric magnetostatic interactions owing to locally broken structural symmetry. We find that this gives rise to a rich spectrum that can be tuned through an external field. We also determine the evolution of the observed excitation modes, starting with building blocks and evolving into larger arrays, highlighting the role of symmetry breaking in defining the mode spectrum of the system. Concurrently, the increasing complexity of the spectrum leads to the existence of a large number of modes over a narrow range of frequencies. These results contribute to the understanding of magnetization dynamics in spin ice systems beyond the kagome and square ice geometries with a view towards the realization of reconfigurable magnonic crystals based on spin ices.