Artificial Kagome Spin Networks - From Short-Range Degeneracy towards Long-Range Dipolar Order

Artificial spin networks were initially proposed as toy-spin models destined for the investigation of magnetic frustration effects in two-dimensional spin lattices, a complementary approach to the study of the magnetic frustration encountered in spin ice pyrochlores. Generally fabricated via lithography techniques, these arrays of nano-scale magnetic islands can be designed at-will. Given the size and shape of the elements, their magnetization is almost uniform throughout their volume, thus making these islands act like classical Ising spins. Combined with the possibility of individually imaging the magnetic degrees of freedom in real space, these systems offer an almost infinite playground for the investigation of competing interactions in magnetostatic frameworks and potential for the experimental discovery of novel and exotic magnetic phases. However, unlike their condensed matter counterparts, first-generation artificial spin networks are insensitive to thermal fluctuations, requiring other driving mechanisms for accessing their complex low-energy manifolds. A field-protocol has been employed for driving such networks towards their ground-state configurations, although they only partially manage to accommodate pair-island interactions. More recently, thermally-active artificial spin networks have been introduced, surpassing the limits of demagnetized arrays in the quest for exotic low-energy spin textures.This thesis presents experimental and numerical studies performed on artificial kagome spin arrays, one of the most frustrated two-dimensional lattices. The kagome spin ice geometry has received most of the community's attention as it presents highly degenerate manifolds and unconventional spin textures. Within a dipolar long-range framework, it displays a low-temperature regime characterized by the coexistence of a crystalline phase, associated to the magnetic charge, and a disordered spin lattice. While demagnetizing such artificial kagome arrays cannot access this exotic state, thermally-active networks can locally retrieve such a phase, creating crystallites of antiferromagnetically-ordered magnetic charges. The first part of this work presents the experimental protocol employed to this purpose. A kinetic model is also proposed that successfully captures the observed experimental features and explains the efficiency of this approach.The second part of the current thesis presents a study of a novel artificial spin ice system, the artificial kagome Ising network. This network primarily differs from the kagome spin ice array by having its magnetic moments pointing along the vertical axis. A recent study of this system has concluded that, after demagnetization, these two artificial kagome networks display similar pairwise spin correlation development and their final frozen states can be well characterized by short-range interaction models. Through the use of demagnetization protocols, magnetic force microscopy and Monte Carlo simulations, it is demonstrated that long-range dipolar interactions between the magnetic elements cannot be neglected when describing the remanent states of demagnetized artificial kagome Ising networks. These results assess the limits of the reported universal behavior of artificial kagome lattices and enrich the spectrum of magnetic phases that could be achieved with such nanostructured systems. Indeed, Monte Carlo simulations indicate that this kagome Ising network presents a different low-energy behavior than kagome spin ice, the incipient stages of which have been accessed experimentally, but its dipolar ground-state configuration remains unknown. Nevertheless, by inspecting the low-temperature thermodynamic features of this array and through the use of a geometrical construction, a ground-state candidate is provided.