Ice, glass, and solid phases in artificial spin systems with quenched disorder

We present a numerical study on a disordered artificial spin-ice system which interpolates between the long-range ordered square ice and the fully degenerate shakti ice. Starting from the square-ice geometry, disorder is implemented by adding vertical/horizontal magnetic islands to the center of some randomly chosen square plaquettes of the array, at different densities. When no island is added we have ordered square ice. When all square plaquettes have been modified we obtain shakti ice, which is disordered yet in a topological phase corresponding to the Rys F-model. In between, geometrical frustration due to these additional center spins disrupts the long-range Ising order of square-ice, giving rise to a spin-glass regime at low temperatures. The artificial spin system proposed in our work provides an experimental platform to study the interplay between quenched disorder and geometrical frustration.