Towards a Better Understanding of the Anomalous Hall Effect

Recent experimental efforts to identify the intrinsic and extrinsic contributions in the anomalous Hall effect are reviewed. Benefited from the experimental control of artificial impurity density in single crystalline magnetic thin films, a comprehensive physical picture of the anomalous Hall effect involving multiple competing scattering processes has been established. Some new insights into the microscopic mechanisms of the anomalous Hall effect are discussed.