Planar Hall effect and magnetoresistance in Ni81Fe19 and Co square shaped thin films

Ni81Fe19 and Co thin films have been fabricated and their transport properties have been investigated for potential applications in ultra sensitive magnetic field sensors. The Ni81Fe19 films exhibit an anisotropic magnetoresistance (AMR) of 2.5% with a coercivity 2.5 Oe and the Co films exhibit an AMR of 0.7% with coercivity 11 Oe. Large planar Hall effect magnetoresistance values at room temperature are reported for both cases. An unbalanced Wheatstone bridge model is proposed to describe quantitatively the observed experimental Planar Hall Effect data.