Symmetry break in ferromagnetic electrocrystallization: the interplay between dipolar interactions and Laplacian growth

Electrochemical ferromagnetic deposits grown under a planar magnetic field exhibit a striking morphological symmetry breaking. The present paper demonstrate through two-dimensional of-lattice simulations of an extended diffusion-limited aggregation (DLA) model that the competition between magnetic dipolar interactions and electric forces can impose locally the experimentally observed angle selection in a two-dimensional extended DLA model. The long-range correlations in the orientation of dipoles interacting with the applied and dipolar fields preserve this order over a macroscopic scale. Hence, the magnetic dipolar interactions alone cannot impose the field-induced symmetry breaking observed in ferromagnetic electrochemical deposition (ECD).