Université Grenoble Alpes

M1 Nanophysics

Magnetism and nanoscience

Practicals : Magnetotransport
measurements

Fig. 1. Change in the resistance of thin lattices in external magnetic field H

VIOLLET Benjamin
SAUNOT Aymeric

December 1, 2022
1 Introduction
The goal of this practical is to understand the ordinary/extraordinary Hall effect
and the Giant Magneto-resistance effect. To do this, we have a setup that consist of
a Beaudouin electromagnet with a power supply that can provide 10A and a sample
holder with 4 tips in contact with the sample, of which 2 are connected to a current
source, and the other 2 are connected to a voltmeter. We have 3 different samples
which we will use to demonstrate the 3 effects wanted :

- OHE (Ordinary Hall Effect) : a Hall probe with contacts to measure OHE
- EHE (Extraordinary Hall Effect) : a ferromagnetic thin film with perpendicular
magnetic anisotropy (fig. 2a)
- GMR (Giant Magneto-Resistance) : a sample with multiple layers (fig. 2b)

(a) EHE sample (b) GMR sample

2 Hall effect
2.1 Theoretical part
If an electric current flows through a conductor in a magnetic field, the magnetic
field exerts a transverse force on the moving charge carriers which tends to push
them to one side of the conductor. We take a flat conductor to illustrate this on
fig. 3. A buildup of charge at the sides of the conductor will balance this effect,
producing a voltage between the two sides of the conductor.
By doing a simple calculation with the second law of motion, Lorentz force and
Ohm’s law, we get that VH = Vy = Inte x Bz
, with n the carrier density, e the electron
charge and t the thickness of the conductor. We can define the Hall resistance as
Bz
the following : RH = nte . For a typical non magnetic metal (n ≃ 1022 m−3 ) with a
thickness t = 1 nm submitted to a magnetic field Bz = 0.1 T, we get RH ≃ 60 mΩ.

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 Fig. 3. Hall effect illustration

For an in-plane magnetic field, there will be a Hall effect due to the field com-
ponent perpendicular to the current flowing in the material. The resulting voltage
I x By
will be along the z direction, with VH = Vz = nL ye
. The value of the Hall resis-
tance will differ from e to Ly , depending on the orientation of the field. But since
we measure the voltage Vy and not Vz , for an in-plane magnetic field we should get
RH (in-plane) ≃ 0 Ω.

Fig. 4. Expected Hall resistance as a function of the magnetic field

Extraordinary Hall effect

The extraordinary Hall effect can be observed in ferromagnetic materials. As
compared to the ordinary Hall effect, which the Hall resistance varies with the ex-
ternal field applied, the extraordinary Hall resistance depends on the magnetization
of the sample. There is a perpendicular magnetic anisotropy in the sample, because
of its structure. In fact, the sample is a stack of thin films, which leads to surface
anisotropy. The dependence of this anisotropy on the films thickness is as follow :
Ksurf ace ∝ 1t and we have t ≃ 1 nm, so the surface anisotropy is relatively high and
thus leads to an out of plane anisotropy.

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2.2 Experimental part
To begin with, we need to calibrate the Baudouin electromagnet, to see its re-
sponse with respect to the current applied. We get the curve on fig. 5, from which we
can observe a linear relation between the field and the current for −7 A < I < 7 A.
We don’t see any hysteresis, and we can explain the non linear behavior of the electro-
magnet because of the structure of the probe. In fact, since the probe is a magnetic
material, it has a saturation magnetization that we can observe on the calibration
curve. For a current high current, it leads to a non linear relation µ0 H = f (I).

Fig. 5. Beaudoin electromagnet response to a current

2.2.1 Ordinary Hall effect

To see a change in the Hall voltage, we have two parameters that we can change
: the current in the sample and the external field created by the electromagnet. We
begin with the external field, and a bias current in the sample Ibias = 4.063 mA
(measured with an ampere-meter). We will differentiate two cases : in-plane field
and out-of-plane field.
For the out-of-plane field, we should get a straight line, as the Hall voltage is
proportional to the field. As opposed to the in-plane case, where we should see no
effect or at least a very low voltage with maximum field, because if the sample is
slightly off the axis it will see a field B sin θ, which will create a detectable Hall
voltage (as pictured in fig. 4).

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 (a) Out-of-plane field configuration (b) In-plane field configuration

Fig. 6. Hall voltage versus magnetic field for a fixed bias current

For the out-of-plane external field, we get a straight line as expected. The slope of
the curve is a = VBH ≃ 33 mV/T. Since we know that VH = Ibias nte
B
, we can estimate the
density of electron in the sample. With t ≃ 1 mm, we get n ≃ 7.7.1020 electrons/m3 ,
which is a typical value for conduction electrons in germanium.
For the in-plane case, we get a straight line with a lower slope than for the
out-of-plane external field, which is coherent with the theory.

As said before, we can also try varying the Hall voltage with respect to the current
in the sample, submitted to a constant magnetic field. We set the fixed magnetic
field to B = 0.638 kG (in the linear range) and we measure the current in the sample
with an ampere-meter.

(a) Out-of-plane field configuration (b) In-plane field configuration

Fig. 7. Hall voltage versus bias current for a fixed magnetic field

V
For the out-of-plane configuration, we get a slope Ibias ≃ 0.50 Ω so RH ≃ 0.50 Ω
but for the in-plane configuration, we don’t understand the results. We should get

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no effect, but when we plot VH = f (I), we have a straight line with a slope twice as
big as for the out-of-plane field. The problem seemed to be electrical but we have
no explanation to provide, since we did not have much time to do further researches
about this.

2.2.2 Extraordinary Hall effect

The extraordinary Hall effect is a function of
the magnetization, so again we performed two
different measurements : out-of-plane and in-
plane configuration. The sample is very thin
so to avoid contact resistance, we used the four
probes method (fig. 8). This technique allows
us to measure the Hall voltage in a precise way,
such that the current is perpendicular to the
voltage measurement. Even if the current can
flow freely in the material, it is bound to the
extremities of the probes. Fig. 8. Illustration of the four probes
As the magnetization versus an external field method : we can measure the Hall volt-
can give a hysteresis loop in the easy axis, we age perpendicular to the current avoiding
the contact resistances
can expect to get such a result. Thus, when
we approached zero field, we would make more
measurements and vary the field slower. We get the following results :

(a) Out-of-plane field configuration (b) In-plane field configuration

Fig. 9. Hall voltage versus magnetic field for a ferromagnetic material

As expected, we have a hysteresis loop for the out-of-plane configuration and

no effect for the in-plane external field, because of the dependence of Mz for the
extraordinary Hall effect. We can determine the coercive field associated, with an
error estimated (graphic estimation) : HC = (0.34 ± 0.01) kG.

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3 Giant Magneto-Resistance
3.1 Theoretical part
In thin layers of magnetic materials, for a specific composition (fig. 10), we can
observe a change in the resistance of the material, by applying a current in the plane.
This effect is linked to the relative orientations of the magnetizations in the mate-
rial. In fact, we use a sample with two ferromagnetic layers (F) separated by a non
magnetic material. One of the two ferromagnetic pieces is linked to an antiferromag-
netic layer (AF), which pin the magnetization of the ferromagnetic layer. Since it is
difficult to magnetize an antiferromagnet, at low field the pinned ferromagnetic layer
will keep the same magnetization orientation. Then, we may obtain two resistance
states : high resistance for anti-parallel magnetizations and low resistance for parallel
magnetizations (fig. 11).

Fig. 10. Structure of a GMR sample

Another characteristic of the ferromagnetic/antiferromagnetic layer is that it will

induce an exchange bias : the hysteresis loop will be shifted. This effect is due to
the exchange energy between the spins at the interface F/AF, for which the reversal
of the ferromagnetic spins moment has an added energetic cost that is resulting in
a shift of the hysteresis loop. We should expect the following graph, with a relative
change in the resistance of about 50% or more :

Fig. 11. Relative change in the resistance as a function of the field. Here we assume that the
coercive fields of the ferromagnetic layers are different, but if the same material is used, we should
get the same coercive fields.

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 The last parameter that we have to take into account is the thickness of the
layers, because if the sample is too thick we won’t see any effect. This is the reason
why the GMR effect could not be observed until recently, because of the difficulty to
make the samples. In fact, we need the non magnetic layer thickness to be less than
the mean free path of electrons, otherwise collisions will occur in the non magnetic
layer, and the electrons won’t contribute to the GMR effect (fig. 12)

Fig. 12. Spin scattering in the magnetic layers, no scattering in the non magnetic layer

3.2 Experimental part

To measure the GMR effect, we used the four probes method as before, but in
a linear configuration as on fig. 13. This method allows us to measure directly the
resistance of the sample because of the high resistance of the volt-meter : no current
will flow in the voltmeter, and is also allowing to avoid the contact resistances.

Fig. 13. Illustration of the four probes method with a linear configuration

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 In order to vary the magnetizations of
the ferromagnetic layers, we applied a field
in the plane of the sample (fig. 14). Then
we plotted the voltage as function of the
magnetic field applied, we get the graphs
on fig. 15.
As we can see, we have the hysteresis
loop of the pinned ferromagnetic layer that Fig. 14. Sketch of the GMR measurement
is shifted around Hbias = −(0.18±0.01) kG. experiment : the field is in the plane of the
sample
We cannot see the hysteresis loop of the free
ferromagnetic layer, but we have a signifi-
cant increase in the voltage for Hbias < H < 0, which is the consequence of the
magnetization flip. For a constant bias current in the sample, we have ∆V V
= ∆R R
and with the measurements, we get that ∆R R
≃ 60% which is the order of magnitude
expected.

Fig. 15. Graph of the GMR measurement, in-plane configuration

For the multilayer sample that we have, we can calculate the mean free path of
the non magnetic layer to check quantitatively the validity of our result. For a metal
at T = 300 K, the mean free path is roughly l ≃ 40 nm. The non magnetic layer is
copper, and it is 2.5 nm thick so we can say that lM F P ≫ tCu . From this we can say
that we should see a resistance change in the material because collisions in the non
magnetic layer are very unlikely to occur, and it is what we observed on the results.

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4 Conclusion
In this practical, we observed the three effects of magnetotransport in different
materials : the ordinary and extraordinary hall effect, that respectively depends on
the external field and the magnetization of the material, and the giant magneto-
resistance that depends on the orientation of magnetizations in the material. We
learned a new measuring method : the four probes method that allows to avoid
contact resistances and thus get more precise measurements. From this, we were able
to get results that are coherent with the theory (aside from the electrical problem in
part 2.2.1) and affirm our knowledge of these effects.