Ian Gilbert

Proximity signal and shade avoidance differences between early and late successional trees

Competitive interactions between plants determine the success of individuals and species. In developing forests, competition for light is the predominant factor. Shade tolerators acclimate photosynthetically to low light and are capable of long-term survival under the shade cast by others, whereas shade avoiders rapidly dominate gaps but are overtaken in due course by shade-tolerant, later successional species. Shade avoidance results from the phytochrome-mediated perception of far-red radiation (700–800 nm) scattered from the leaves of neighbours, provides early warning of shading, and induces developmental responses that, when successful, result in the overgrowth of those neighbours. Shade tolerators cast a deep shade, whereas less-tolerant species cast light shade, and saplings tend to have high survivorship in shade cast by conspecific adults, but high rates of mortality when shaded by more-tolerant species. Here we report a parallel relationship in which the shade-avoidance responses of three tree species are inversely proportional to proximity signals generated by those species. On this basis, early successional species generate small proximity signals but react strongly to them, whereas late successional species react weakly but generate strong signals.

Crystallites of magnetic charges in artificial spin ice

Artificial spin ice is a class of lithographically created arrays of interacting ferromagnetic nanometre-scale islands. It was introduced to investigate many-body phenomena related to frustration and disorder in a material that could be tailored to precise specifications and imaged directly. Because of the large magnetic energy scales of these nanoscale islands, it has so far been impossible to thermally anneal artificial spin ice into desired thermodynamic ensembles; nearly all studies of artificial spin ice have either treated it as a granular material activated by alternating fields or focused on the as-grown state of the arrays. This limitation has prevented experimental investigation of novel phases that can emerge from the nominal ground states of frustrated lattices. For example, artificial kagome spin ice, in which the islands are arranged on the edges of a hexagonal net, is predicted to support states with monopolar charge order at entropies below that of the previously observed pseudo-ice manifold. Here we demonstrate a method for thermalizing artificial spin ices with square and kagome lattices by heating above the Curie temperature of the constituent material. In this manner, artificial square spin ice achieves unprecedented thermal ordering of the moments. In artificial kagome spin ice, we observe incipient crystallization of the magnetic charges embedded in pseudo-ice, with crystallites of magnetic charges whose size can be controlled by tuning the lattice constant. We find excellent agreement between experimental data and Monte Carlo simulations of emergent charge–charge interactions.

Perpendicular magnetization and generic realization of the ising model in artificial spin ice

We have studied frustrated kagome arrays and unfrustrated honeycomb arrays of magnetostatically interacting single-domain ferromagnetic islands with magnetization normal to the plane. The measured pairwise spin correlations of both lattices can be reproduced by models based solely on nearest-neighbor correlations. The kagome array has qualitatively different magnetostatics but identical lattice topology to previously studied artificial spin ice systems composed of in-plane moments. The two systems show striking similarities in the development of moment pair correlations, demonstrating a universality in artificial spin ice behavior independent of specific realization in a particular material system.

Magneto-optical Kerr effect studies of square artificial spin ice

We report a magneto-optical Kerr effect study of the collective magnetic response of artificial square spin ice, a lithographically-defined array of single-domain ferromagnetic islands. We find that the anisotropic inter-island interactions lead to a non-monotonic angular dependence of the array coercive field. Comparisons with micromagnetic simulations indicate that the two perpendicular sublattices exhibit distinct responses to island edge roughness, which clearly influence the magnetization reversal process. Furthermore, such comparisons demonstrate that disorder associated with roughness in the island edges plays a hitherto unrecognized but essential role in the collective behavior of these systems.

Direct visualization of memory effects in artificial spin ice

We experimentally demonstrate that arrays of interacting nanoscale ferromagnetic islands, known as artificial spin ice, develop reproducible microstates upon cycling an applied magnetic field. The onset of this memory effect is determined by the strength of the applied field relative to the array coercivity. Specifically, when the applied field strength is almost exactly equal to the array coercivity, several training cycles are required before the array achieves a nearly completely repeatable microstate, whereas when the applied field strength is stronger or weaker than the array coercivity, a repeatable microstate is achieved after the first minor loop. We show through experiment and simulation that this memory exhibited by artificial spin ice is due to a ratchet effect on interacting, magnetically-charged defects in the island moment configuration and to the complexity of the network of strings of reversed moments that forms during magnetization reversal.

Artificial spin ice: from scientific toy to material by design (Presentation Recording)

Frustration, the presence of constraints/interactions that cannot be completely satisfied, is ubiquitous in the physical sciences as well as in life and a source of degeneracy and disorder which gives rise to new and interesting physical phenomena. In the past years a new perspective has opened in the study of frustration through the creation of artificial frustrated magnetic systems, consisting of arrays of lithographically fabricated single-domain ferromagnetic nanostructures that behave like giant Ising spins. The interactions can be controlled through their geometric properties and arrangement: The degrees of freedom of the material can be directly tuned, but also individually observed. Experimental studies have unearthed intriguing connections to the out-of-equilibrium physics of disordered systems and non-thermal “granular” materials, while revealing strong analogies to spin ice materials and their fractionalized magnetic monopole excitations, lending the enterprise a distinctly interdisciplinary flavor. In this talk we outline the more recent developments and future vistas for progress in this rapidly expanding field. We show how recent results have opened paths to new territories. Higher control, inclusive of genuine thermal ensembles have replaced the earlier and coarser methods based on magnetic agitation. Dynamical versions are now being realized, characterized in real time via PEEM, revealing statistical mechanics in action. This has lead us to afford implementation of new geometries, not found in nature, for dedicated bottom up design of desired emergent properties. Born as a scientific toy to investigate frustration-by-design, artificial spin ice might now be used to open “a path into an uncharted territory, a landscape of advanced functional materials in which topological effects on physical properties can be explored and harnessed.”