Electrically tunable anomalous Hall effect in Pt thin films

Phys Rev Lett. 2013 Nov 22;111(21):216803. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.111.216803. Epub 2013 Nov 20.

Abstract

Pt is often considered to be an exchange-enhanced paramagnetic material, in which the Stoner criterion for ferromagnetism is nearly satisfied and, thus, external stimuli may induce unconventional magnetic characteristics. We report that a nonmagnetic perturbation in the form of a gate voltage applied via an ionic liquid induces an anomalous Hall effect (AHE) in Pt thin films, which resembles the AHE induced by the contact to Bi-doped yttrium iron garnet. Analysis of detailed temperature and magnetic field experiments indicates that the evolution of the AHE with temperature can be explained in terms of large local moments; the applied electric field induces magnetic moments as large as ~10 μ(B) that follow the Langevin function.