Measurement of the Hall effect at nanoscale with three probes

TL;DR

This paper introduces a three-probe Hall measurement technique enabling accurate nanoscale Hall effect measurements, overcoming limitations of traditional four-probe setups, demonstrated through magnetic domain wall motion studies.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel three-probe Hall configuration that prevents current shunting, allowing precise nanoscale Hall effect measurements.

Findings

Three-probe setup effectively measures Hall effects at nanoscale.

Demonstrated measurement of domain wall motion in magnetic films.

Overcomes limitations of conventional four-probe methods.

Abstract

The Hall effect and its varieties such as quantum, anomalous, and spin Hall effects, provide indispensable tools for the characterization of electronic and magnetic properties of materials, metrology, and spintronics. The conventional four-probe Hall configuration is generally not amenable to measurements at nanoscale, due to current shunting by the Hall electrodes. We demonstrate that Hall measurements on the nanoscale can be facilitated by the three-probe Hall configuration that avoids the shunting problem. We illustrate the efficiency of the proposed approach with anomalous Hall effect-based measurements of individual activation events during domain wall motion in magnetic films with perpendicular anisotropy.