Analysis of the anomalous Hall effect in a double layer of a ferromagnetic and a normal metal

A new method is suggested to investigate the mechanism of the anomalous Hall effect (AHE) in ferromagnetic metals. Using a double layer of a ferromagnet and a normal metal of increasing thickness one can manipulate the AHE in the ferromagnet without changing the ferromagnet's structure and electronic properties. The conduction electrons from the normal metal carry their drift velocity across the interface into the ferromagnetic film and induce an additional AHE conductance ΔG<Subscript>xy</Subscript>. Its dependence on the mean free path in the normal metal distinguishes between the side jump and the skew scattering mechanisms for the AHE in the ferromagnet. Copyright EDP Sciences/Società Italiana di Fisica/Springer-Verlag 2006