Abstract
The anomalous Hall effect (AHE) in alloy films is studied both experimentally and theoretically. We find that the intrinsic contribution () to the AHE can be significantly increased, whereas the extrinsic side-jump contribution () can be continuously reduced from being slightly larger than in FePd to being much smaller than in FePt, by increasing the Pt composition . We show that this chemical composition tuning of the intrinsic contribution is afforded by the stronger spin-orbit coupling strength on the site when the lighter Pd atoms are replaced by the heavier Pt atoms. Our results provide a means of manipulating the competing AHE mechanisms in ferromagnetic alloys for fully understanding the AHE and also for technological applications of ferromagnetic alloys.
- Received 4 December 2011
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.109.066402
© 2012 American Physical Society