Topologically Nontrivial Magnon Bands in Artificial Square Spin Ices with Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya Interaction

Systems that exhibit topologically protected edge states are interesting both from a fundamental point of view as well as for potential applications, the latter because of the absence of backscattering and robustness to perturbations. It is desirable to be able to control and manipulate such edge states. Here, we show that artificial square ices can incorporate both features: an interfacial Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction gives rise to topologically nontrivial magnon bands, and the equilibrium state of the spin ice is reconfigurable with different configurations having different magnon dispersions and topology. The topology is found to develop as odd-symmetry bulk and edge magnon bands approach each other so that constructive band inversion occurs in reciprocal space. Our results show that topologically protected bands are supported in square spin ices.