Giant planar Hall effect in colossal magnetoresistive La0.84Sr0.16MnO3 thin films

The transverse resistivity in thin films of La0.84Sr0.16MnO3 (LSMO) exhibits sharp field-symmetric jumps below T-C. We show that a likely source of this behavior is the giant planar Hall effect combined with biaxial magnetic anisotropy. The effect is comparable in magnitude to that observed recently in the magnetic semiconductor Ga(Mn)As. It can be potentially used in applications such as magnetic sensors and nonvolatile memory devices. (C) 2004 American Institute of Physics.