| A series of GaMnAs samples with various Mn concentrations and thicknesses is extensively studied in this thesis. The influence of annealing on the magnetic, lattice, and electron transport properties of GaMnAs is investigated. X-ray analysis allowed the lattice constants and the strains due to the lattice mismatch between the GaMnAs film and a GaAs substrate for each sample to be determined. Magnetometric measurements confirm the expected anisotropic ferromagnetic characteristics of these semiconductors, and the measured magnetization in hard and easy axis directions indicates that only around 40% of Mn ions contribute to the ferromagnetism. As a result of the study of the electron transport in GaMnAs at high temperatures, we found that the anomalous contribution to the Hall resistivity dominates over the ordinary contribution up to 380 K in our samples. The measured Hall coefficient of metallic samples with low Mn content above the Curie temperature (TC) can be fit with a model that takes into account the ordinary and anomalous contributions to the Hall resistivity. According to our model, the spontaneous Hall coefficient (RS) in our samples is proportional to the square of the longitudinal resistivity above TC, which corresponds to a temperature-independent Hall conductivity, and we checked for one sample that this form of RS holds also at the liquid He temperature. This indicates that the physical mechanism responsible for the anomalous Hall effect (AHE) remains unchanged in the transition from ferromagnetic to paramagnetic phases of the semiconductor. It is found that the temperature dependence of the AHE above TC can be described except for RS(T) with the Curie-Weiss law for the paramagnetic susceptibility with the inclusion of a small, negative, temperature and Mn content independent correction to the susceptibility, which may originate from the diamagnetism of the GaAs matrix. The good agreement between the measured and fitting Hall data suggests that the model correctly captures the physical origin of the Hall effect above TC and up to 380 K. The fitting procedure based on our model can be used as a new technique to determine the hole concentrations in GaMnAs, which are notoriously difficult to measure by conventional methods. |
