A textured thin film of FeGe was grown by magnetron sputtering with a helimagnetic ordering temperature of TN = 276 ± 2 K. From 5 K to room temperature a variety of scattering processes contribute towards the overall longitudinal and Hall resistivities. These were studied by combining magnetometry and magnetotransport measurements. The high-field magnetoresistance (MR) displays three clear temperature regimes: Lorentz force MR dominates at low temperatures, above T ≈ 80 K scattering from spin-waves predominates, whilst finally for T 200 K scattering from fluctuating local moments describes the MR. At low fields, where the magnetisation is no longer technically saturated, we find a scaling of magnetoresistance with the square of the magnetisation, indicating that the MR due to the unwinding of spins in the conical phase arises from a similar mechanism to that in magnetic domain walls. This MR is only visible up to a temperature of about 200 K. No features can be found in the temperature or field dependence of the longitudinal resistivity that belie the presence of the underlying magnetic phase transition at TN: the marked changes in behavior are at much lower temperatures. The anomalous Hall effect has a dramatic temperature dependence in which the anomalous Hall resistivity scales quadratically with the longitudinal resistivity: comparison with anomalous Hall scaling theory shows that our system is in the intrinsic "moderately dirty" regime. Lastly, we find evidence of a topological Hall effect of size ∼ 100 µΩcm.

Arrays of non-interacting nanomagnets are widespread in data storage and processing. As current technologies approach fundamental limits on size and thermal stability, enhancing functionality through embracing the strong interactions present at high array densities becomes attractive. In this respect, artificial spin ices are geometrically frustrated magnetic metamaterials that offer vast untapped potential due to their unique microstate landscapes, with intriguing prospects in applications from reconfigurable logic to magnonic devices or hardware neural networks. However, progress in such systems is impeded by the inability to access more than a fraction of the total microstate space. Here, we demonstrate that topological defect-driven magnetic writing-a scanning probe technique-provides access to all of the possible microstates in artificial spin ices and related arrays of nanomagnets. We create previously elusive configurations such as the spin-crystal ground state of artificial kagome dipolar spin ices and high-energy, low-entropy 'monopole-chain' states that exhibit negative effective temperatures.

Strongly-interacting artificial spin systems are moving beyond mimicking naturally-occuring materials to find roles as versatile functional platforms, from reconfigurable magnonics to designer magnetic metamaterials. Typically artificial spin systems comprise nanomagnets with a single magnetisation texture: collinear macrospins or chiral vortices. By tuning nanoarray dimensions we achieve macrospin/vortex bistability and demonstrate a four-state metamaterial spin-system 'Artificial Spin-Vortex Ice' (ASVI). ASVI is capable of adopting Ising-like macrospins with strong ice-like vertex interactions, in addition to weakly-coupled vortices with low stray dipolar-field. The enhanced bi-texture microstate space gives rise to emergent physical memory phenomena, with ratchet-like vortex training and history-dependent nonlinear training dynamics. We observe vortex-domain formation alongside MFM tip vortex-writing. Tip-written vortices dramatically alter local reversal and memory dynamics. Vortices and macrospins exhibit starkly-differing spin-wave spectra with analogue-style mode-amplitude control via vortextraining and mode-frequency shifts of ∆ f = 3.8 GHz. We leverage spin-wave 'spectral fingerprinting' for rapid, scaleable readout of vortex and macrospin populations over complex training-protocols with applicability for functional magnonics and physical memory.

Ferromagnetic resonance (FMR) is performed on kagome artificial spin ice (ASI) formed of disconnected Ni 80 Fe 20 nanowires. Here we break the threefold angular symmetry of the kagome lattice by altering the coercive field of each sublattice via shape anisotropy modification. This allows for distinct high-frequency responses when a magnetic field is aligned along each sublattice and additionally enables simultaneous spin-wave resonances to be excited in all nanowire sublattices, unachievable in conventional kagome ASI. The different coercive field of each sublattice allows selective magnetic switching via global field, unlocking novel microstates inaccessible in homogeneous-nanowire ASI. The distinct spin-wave spectra of these states are detected experimentally via FMR and linked to underlying microstates using micromagnetic simulation.

Realising the promise of next-generation magnetic nanotechnologies is contingent on the development of novel methods for controlling magnetic states at the nanoscale. There is currently demand for simple and flexible techniques to access exotic magnetisation states without convoluted fabrication and application processes. 360° domain walls (metastable twists in magnetisation separating two domains with parallel magnetisation) are one such state, which is currently of great interest in data storage and magnonics. Here, we demonstrate a straightforward and powerful process whereby a moving magnetic charge, provided experimentally by a magnetic force microscope tip, can write and manipulate magnetic charge states in ferromagnetic nanowires. The method is applicable to a wide range of nanowire architectures with considerable benefits over existing techniques. We confirm the method’s efficacy via the injection and spatial manipulation of 360° domain walls in Py and Co nanowires. Experimental results are supported by micromagnetic simulations of the tip-nanowire interaction.