Increased intrinsic anomalous Hall effect from rare earth content in amorphous Sm<inf>x</inf>Co<inf>1-x</inf>films

The low temperature anomalous Hall effect in amorphous sputtered SmxCo1-x films is investigated. The microstructure and amorphous nature of the films were characterized by local area diffraction through transmission electron microscopy. The Sm/Co ratio was changed to elucidate the origin of the anomalous Hall effect, which is a proxy for spin polarized transport. The anomalous Hall effect obeys a scaling relation that points to an intrinsic Berry-curvature based mechanism, consistent with recent reports on other amorphous magnetic materials. The anomalous Hall angle increases with increasing Sm content and reaches large values of ∼1%. This observation is related to recent measurements of the local structure in amorphous Sm-Co alloys and suggests that rare earth elements can be utilized to improve electrical control over spin polarization in amorphous magnetic films.