Refrustration and competing orders in spin ice

Refrustration and competing orders in the prototypical Dy2Ti2O7 spin ice material.

P. Henelius, T. Lin, M. Enjalran, Z. Hao, J. G. Rau, J. Altosaar, F. Flicker, T. Yavors'kii, and M. J. P. Gingras

Phys. Rev. B 93, 024402 (2016)

Set of interacting neighbors on the pyrochlore lattice. The first- (J1), second- (J2), and two distinct third- (J3a and J3b) nearest-neighbor pathways are indicated by red, blue, green, and orange connections, respectively, on the pyrochlore lattice of corner-sharing tetrahedra. A two-in/two-out state of two spins pointing into the center of the tetrahedron and two spins pointing out from the tetrahedron is shown in the upper-right-hand corner of the lattice. An ice-rule obeying state is characterized by all tetrahedra being in a two-in/two-out spin configuration, but with no other constraint on the orientation of the spins.