Emergent charge crystallization and frustration in a particle anti-spin ice
- 1Departament de Física de la Matèria Condensada, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, 08028 Spain
- 2Universitat de Barcelona Institute of Complex Systems (UBICS), Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, 08028 Spain
- 3Theoretical Division, Center for NonLinear Studies, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM USA
Abstract
Artificial spin ices have transcended their origins in frustrated rare-earth pyrochlores to become a versatile platform for engineering exotic states of matter. Across diverse implementations, from nanomagnets and superconducting vortices to colloids, quantum annealers, liquid crystals, and metamaterials, they are frequently described by the ice rule, often leading to degeneracy and constrained disorder by enforcing minimization of the local topological charge. Here, we report the realization of an “anti-spin ice” in which not only the ice rule does not hold, but its opposite is true as the system seeks to maximize, rather than minimize, spin ice charges. Using fast-rotating in-plane magnetic fields to generate isotropic attraction between colloidal particles, we invert the conventional paradigm of repulsive interactions in colloidal spin ices. Combining experiments and simulations across bipartite square and honeycomb lattices as well as non-bipartite pentaheptite geometries, we establish rules for order and disorder in the anti-spin ice. With the pentaheptite lattice, we demonstrate that the anti-spin ice system can also exhibit frustration, but of a different kind. This topological charge frustration arises from the lattice connectivity, where networks of unequal, odd-sided polygons suppress charge crystallization at high interaction strengths.
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BibTeX
@article{baillou2026emergent,
title = {{Emergent charge crystallization and frustration in a particle anti-spin ice}},
author = {Renaud Baillou and Matthew Terkel and Cristiano Nisoli and Pietro Tierno},
journal = {Nature Communications},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.1038/s41467-026-77905-2},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-77905-2},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Emergent charge crystallization and frustration in a particle anti-spin ice
AU - Renaud Baillou
AU - Matthew Terkel
AU - Cristiano Nisoli
AU - Pietro Tierno
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/26
JO - Nature Communications
DO - 10.1038/s41467-026-77905-2
UR - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-77905-2
AB - Artificial spin ices have transcended their origins in frustrated rare-earth pyrochlores to become a versatile platform for engineering exotic states of matter. Across diverse implementations, from nanomagnets and superconducting vortices to colloids, quantum annealers, liquid crystals, and metamaterials, they are frequently described by the ice rule, often leading to degeneracy and constrained disorder by enforcing minimization of the local topological charge. Here, we report the realization of an “anti-spin ice” in which not only the ice rule does not hold, but its opposite is true as the system seeks to maximize, rather than minimize, spin ice charges. Using fast-rotating in-plane magnetic fields to generate isotropic attraction between colloidal particles, we invert the conventional paradigm of repulsive interactions in colloidal spin ices. Combining experiments and simulations across bipartite square and honeycomb lattices as well as non-bipartite pentaheptite geometries, we establish rules for order and disorder in the anti-spin ice. With the pentaheptite lattice, we demonstrate that the anti-spin ice system can also exhibit frustration, but of a different kind. This topological charge frustration arises from the lattice connectivity, where networks of unequal, odd-sided polygons suppress charge crystallization at high interaction strengths.
SN - 2041-1723
ER -