"Our work accomplished the first experimental realization of an artificial spin glass consisting of nanomagnets arranged to replicate a neural network," said Michael Saccone, a post-doctoral researcher inphysical systemsSpin glasses are a way to think about material structure mathematically.
At the intersection of engineered materials and computation, spin-glass systems are a type of disordered system of nanomagnets arising from random interactions and competition between two types of magnetic order in the material. They exhibit"frustration," meaning that they don't settle into a uniformly ordered configuration when their temperature drops, and they possess distinct thermodynamic and dynamic traits that can be harnessed for computing applications.
"Theoretical models describing spin glasses are broadly used in other complex systems, such as those describing brain function, error-correcting codes or stock-market dynamics," Saccone said."This wide interest in spin glasses provides strong motivation to generate an artificial spin glass."