Hall Effect in Zinc Crystals at Low Temperatures

An experimental study has been made of the Hall effect in single crystals of zinc. For each crystal, one component of the Hall field was measured for a fixed crystallographic orientation of the current density, but for various orientations of the magnetic field in the plane perpendicular to the current density. At 77°K, the Hall field is a linear function of magnetic field which can be characterized by two coefficients. The first coefficient, for the interaction between the magnetic field component parallel to the hexagonal axis and current density component in the hexagonal plane, has a value of about 2×${10}^{-12\mathrm{}}$ ohm cm/gauss. The second coefficient measures the interaction between the magnetic field component in the hexagonal plane and the current density component perpendicular to this field component. Its value is about 0.2×${10}^{-12\mathrm{}}$ ohm cm/gauss At 20.4°K, the Hall field is nonlinear with magnetic field. For some orientations, the measured component of the Hall field increased with increasing magnetic field. In other cases, the opposite behavior was observed. Between 5 and 10 kilogauss, the Hall effect is of the same order of magnitude at 20.4°K as at 77°K. No correlation was apparent between Hall effect and either susceptibility or magnetoresistance.