Spontaneous Hall Effect in Amorphous Tb-Fe and Sm-Fe Thin films

The spontaneous Hall effect in amorphous Tb-Fe and Sm-Fe thin films, which possess excellent magnetic softness, is investigated in this work to seek a possibility of practical applications of these thin films as sensors. The resistivity of Tb-Fe thin films ranges from 180 to 250 Ωcm as the Tb content varies from 35 to 46 at. %. Tb-Fe thin films show negative Hall resistivity ranging from - 7.3 to - 5.0 Ωcm in the same composition range, giving the normalized resistivity ratio in the range of -4.1 to -2.0 %. On the other hand, the resistivity of Sm-Fe thin films ranges from 150 to 166 Ωcm as the Sm content varies from 22 to 31 at. %. Sm-Fe thin films show positive Hall resistivity which varies from 7.1 to 2.8 Ωcm in the same composition range, giving the normalized resistivity ratio in the range of 4.8 to 1.7 %. These values are significantly high compared with the values of other R-T alloys, Tb-Co alloys for example, where the highest reported value is 2.5 %. Between the two different sets of samples, Tb-Fe thin films with perpendicular anisotropy are considered to be more suitable for practical applications, since saturation is reached at a los magnetic field, approximately 2 kOe in a Tb$\sub$35.1/ Fe$\sub$64.9/ thin film, for example.