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MINI REVIEW article

Front. Phys.
Sec. Condensed Matter Physics
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fphy.2024.1488275
This article is part of the Research Topic Current Research On Spin Glasses View all 7 articles

Towards understanding the dimensional crossover of canonical spin-glass thin films

Provisionally accepted
Qiang Zhai Qiang Zhai 1*Raymond Orbach Raymond Orbach 2*
  • 1 Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, China
  • 2 The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Spin-glass thin films exhibit many features different from the bulk. The freezing temperatures of spin-glass films are suppressed for reduced thickness and follow the Kenning relation.The dynamics are altered near the vacuum interface. These phenomena are closely related to the lower critical dimension of spin glasses, the spin-glass correlation length and the dimensional crossover from d=3 to d=2. In this article, we review the experimental facts and theoretical perspectives for spin-glass thin films. We focus on canonical spin-glass systems with the Ruderman-Kittel-Kasuya-Yosida (RKKY) interaction between magnetic impurities in a nonmagnetic host. Open questions to be addressed are emphasized.

    Keywords: spin glasses, Dimensional crossover, Freezing temperature, correlation length, interfacial effects

    Received: 29 Aug 2024; Accepted: 07 Oct 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Zhai and Orbach. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Qiang Zhai, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, China
    Raymond Orbach, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, 78705, Texas, United States

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