Paper detail

Spectral-fingerprinting: Microstate readout via remanence ferromagnetic resonance in artificial spin systems

Artificial spin ices are magnetic metamaterials comprising geometrically-tiled interacting nanomagnets. There is significant interest in these systems for reconfigurable magnonics due to their vast microstate landscape. Studies to-date have focused on the in-field GHz spin-wave response, convoluting effects from applied field, nanofabrication-imperfections ('quenched disorder') and microstate-dependent dipolar field landscapes. Here, we study artificial spin ices in pure and disordered microstates and evaluate their zero-field spectra. Removing the applied field allows us to deconvolute contributions to reversal dynamics and spin-wave spectra, directly measuring the dipolar field landscape and quenched disorder. Mode-amplitude provides population readout of nanomagnet magnetisation direction, and hence net magnetisation as well as local vertex populations. We demonstrate microstate-fingerprinting via distinct spectral-readout of three microstates with identical (zero) magnetisation, supported by simulation. These results establish remanence 'spectral-fingerprinting' as a rapid, scalable on-chip readout of both magnetic state and nanoscale dipolar field texture, a critical step in realising next-generation functional magnonic devices.