Skew scattering dominated anomalous Hall effect in Si/Ni multilayers containing varying number of bilayers

Abstract

A systematic study of the skew scattering dominated anomalous Hall effect (AHE) in Si/Ni multilayers has been carried out on several samples containing different number of bilayers. The investigation is performed by preparing a series of Si10Å/Ni30ÅN multilayers. When the number of bilayers (N) is decreased, structural analysis showed that the size of Ni nanocrystallites and the distance between them decreases whereas their count rises. As a result, the saturation magnetization lowers with N. Furthermore, the perpendicular magnetic anisotropy of the multilayers improves as N is reduced. The saturated AHE resistance (RHSA) is also found to decrease as N increases due to the decreases of the Si/Ni interface area and scattering effect from the Ni nanocrystallites. A maximum of about 28 times enhancement in RHSA is observed for the sample with N = 1 when compared with that for N = 24. It is seen that the skew scattering is the dominant mechanism which is responsible for the AHE in the Si/Ni multilayers.