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  • Open Access

Anisotropic interactions induce dynamical spin freezing in artificial colloidal ice

Leonardo G. Alanis-Cantú and Antonio Ortiz-Ambriz*

  • *Contact author: aortiza@tec.mx
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Phys. Rev. Research 8, 033051 – Published 13 July, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/q96k-2pcs

Abstract

Artificial colloidal ice is an icelike system used to study the effects of frustration in controlled environments, where all degrees of freedom can be accessed at a length scale large enough for optical visualization and in real time. We modify this model system by inducing anisotropic interactions through an in-plane magnetic field. In this regime, the system has a well-defined ground state consisting of a checkerboard pattern of fully charged vertices. However, Brownian dynamics simulations are unable to reach this ground state and instead remain frozen in metastable disordered states, even in the absence of quenched disorder in the lattice. This arrest is caused by the local magnetic enhancement of the potential barrier that the particles need to cross to find a lower energy state.

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Phys. Rev. Research 8, 033051– Published 13 July, 2026
  • Received 5 June 2025
  • Accepted 11 June 2026
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

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