From artificial magnetic matter to artificial spintronics – ArtMat

The ArtMat project is structured around two main objectives.
The first one is of fundamental nature and will focus on studying the properties of solid / liquid and liquid / liquid interfaces in artificial magnetic systems presenting a phase coexistence. In particular, we will study how topologically-protected magnetic pseudo-charge excitations (the so-called magnetic monopoles in spin ice physics) behave when crossing a magnetic interface separating a Coulomb spin liquid from a(n) (anti)ferromagnetically ordered phase. This questioning will be subsequently extended to interfaces separating two distinct spin liquids, for example separating a conventional spin liquid (non Coulombic) from a fragmented spin liquid.
The second objective is paradigmatic. We will demonstrate, experimentally and numerically, the existence of strong analogies between the transport of topological magnetic pseudo-charges through an artificial phase-separated system, and the spin-dependent electron transport occurring in spintronic devices (i.e., spin valve structures). We will focus more specifically on transport phenomena induced by an applied magnetic field and / or thermally assisted to illustrate conceptual bridges with the spin filtering and spin accumulation effects known in spintronics.