Research: Emergent Electrochem­istry in Spin Ice

Fractionalisation is a surprising phenomenon, whereby an (apparently) indivisible particle splits up into two or more independent entities. It is by now well understood how this can happen at low temperatures. This work shows that the emergent fractionalised particles can in fact be used to desribe a spin model not only at low, but also at intermediate and high temperatures. To do so, we have made extensive use of ideas imported from the physics and chemistry of electrolytes. Spin ice, the system we study, can even act as a particularly simple and controllable model system for experiments on electrochemistry.

V. Kaiser, J. Bloxsom, L. Bovo, S. T. Bramwell, P. C. W. Holdsworth, R. Moessner,
Emergent electrochemistry in spin ice: Debye-Hückel theory and beyond,
Phys. Rev. B 98, 144413 (2018) (arXiv)