Magnetization reversal process in Fe/Si (001) single-crystalline film investigated by planar Hall effect

A planar Hall effect (PHE) is introduced to investigate the magnetization reversal process in single-crystalline iron film grown on a Si (001) substrate. Owing to the domain structure of iron film and the characteristics of PHE, the magnetization switches sharply in an angular range of the external field for two steps of 90° domain wall displacement and one step of 180° domain wall displacement near the easy axis, respectively. However, the magnetization reversal process near the hard axis is completed by only one step of 90° domain wall displacement and then rotates coherently. The magnetization reversal process mechanism near the hard axis seems to be a combination of coherent rotation and domain wall displacement. Furthermore, the domain wall pinning energy and uniaxial magnetic anisotropy energy can also be derived from the PHE measurement.