Wigner crystal of magnetic charges in neodymium-based artificial honeycomb lattice

Antiferromagnetic artificial honeycomb lattice can be used to explore fundamental properties of solid state materials. The magnetic analogue of Wigner crystal is one of them. In this talk, we present phenomenological evidences to the development of Wigner crystal of magnetic charges in a newly designed neodymium-based artificial honeycomb lattice where effective magnetic charges of ±1 and ±3 units, bound by magnetic Coulomb's interaction, act as single particle condensates. Electronic measurements on neodymium-based two-dimensional honeycomb lattice reveal magnetic field induced two step switching process, accompanied by a colossal enhancement in differential conductivity, in a narrow temperature range of 25 K<T<60 K. Correspondingly, the system manifests a transition between two magnetic charge configurations, on the vertices of honeycomb lattice. At low temperature and field, the bound charges tend to condense in a diamagnetic state. The experimental results provide a novel mechanism to manipulate the electronic properties of magnetic materials in two dimensional systems.