Controlling degeneracy and magnetization switching in an artificial spin ice system of peanut-shaped nanomagnets

Using extensive numerical simulations, we probe the magnetization switching in a two-dimensional artificial spin ice (ASI) system consisting of peanut-shaped nanomagnets. We also investigated the effect of external magnetic field on the degeneracy of the magnetic states in such a system. The switching field is found to be one order smaller in the proposed ASI system with peanut-shaped nanomagnets as compared to the conventionally used highly-anisotropic nanoisland such as elliptically shaped nanomagnets. The metastable two-in/two-out (Type II) magnetic state is robust at the remanence. We are also able to access the other possible microstate corresponding to Type II magnetic configurations by carefully varying the external magnetic field. It implies that one can control the degeneracy of the magnetic state by an application of suitable magnetic field. Interestingly, the magnetic charge neutrality at the vertex breaks due to the defects induced by removing nanomagnets. In such a case, the system also appears to have one-out/three-in or three-out/one-in (Type III) spin state, reminiscent of magnetic monopole at the vertex. We believe that our study is highly desirable in the context of developing the next-generation spintronics-based devices for future technologies.