Planar Hall effect and anisotropic magnetoresistance in semiconducting and conducting oxide thin films

Transport measurement techniques are generally considered to be indirect methods of probing the phenomenology of materials and hence are limited in scope and require careful interpretation. However, when performed with due care and precision in addition to other characterization methods, magnetotransport measurements are an essential tool in the study of magnetic and electronic materials particularly in proving potential devices that function on the basis of charge or spin transport. In this work, we demonstrate the advantage of employing a method that simultaneously measures the planar Hall effect and the anisotropic magnetoresistance which are two aspects of the resistivity anisotropy to characterize a range of semiconducting and conducting oxide thin films. The development of novel magnetotransport characterization methods is motivated by the need for reliable measurements of the electronic properties of a wide range of materials under varying thermal, mechanical and magnetic conditions.