Photo-induced anomalous Hall effect in nickel thin films

Anomalous Hall effect is commonly used as a simple technique to study the magnetization reversal of perpendicularly magnetized thin films. Yet, in most applications, the easy-magnetization direction is in the film-plane. We here propose photo-induced anomalous Hall effect as a new magneto-metric technique to reconstruct the in-plane magnetization loop of metallic thin films. Nickel thin films were deposited on intrinsic silicon to form a Schottky contact. Photo-induced Hall voltage was found hysteretic with the in-plane, magnetic field. The measured voltage-loop was found to mimic the magnetization loop as measured by a magnetometer.