Magnetoresistance and anomalous Hall effect of reactive sputtered polycrystalline Ti1-xCrxN films

The reactive-sputtered polycrystalline Ti1 - xCrxN films with 0.17 <= x <= 0.51 are ferromagnetic and at x = 0.47 the Curie temperature T-C shows a maximum of similar to 120 K. The films are metallic at 0 <= x <= 0.47, while the films with x = 0.51 and 0.78 are semiconducting-like. The upturn of resistivity below 70 K observed in the films with 0.10 <= x <= 0.47 is from the effects of the electron-electron interaction and weak localization. The negative magnetoresistance (MR) of the films with 0.10 <= x <= 0.51 is dominated by the double-exchange interaction, while at x = 0.78, MR is related to the localized magnetic moment scattering at the grain boundaries. The scaling rho(A)(xy)/n proportional to rho(2.19)(xx) suggests that the anomalous Hall effect in the polycrystalline Ti1 - xCrxN films is scattering-independent. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.