Local Spin Ice Order Induced Planar Hall Effect in Nd–Sn Artificial Honeycomb Lattice

Abstract

AbstractGeometrically frustrated materials, such as spin ice or kagome lattice, are known to exhibit exotic Hall effect phenomena due to spin chirality. For the first time, Hall effect mechanism is explored in an artificial honeycomb spin ice of Nd–Sn element using Hall probe and polarized neutron reflectivity measurements. In an interesting observation, a strong enhancement in Hall signal at relatively higher temperature of T ∼ 20 K is detected. The effect is attributed to the planar Hall effect due to magnetic moment configuration in spin ice state in low field application. In the antiferromagnetic state of neodymium at low temperature, applied field induced coupling between atomic Nd moments and conduction electrons in underlying lattice causes distinct increment in Hall resistivity at very modest field of H ∼ 0.015 T. The experimental findings suggest the development of a new research vista to study the planar and the field induced Hall effects in artificial spin ice.