The observation of four types of hall constant anisotropy in copper and their role in the determination of the fermi surface

Abstract

Four of five possible types of high field Hall constant anisotropy predicted for metals (Lifshitz and Peschanskii 1958) have been observed by us in copper and are reported in this letter. The fifth type is not expected for copper. The observed Hall constant behaviour is markedly different from the results reported for copper by earlier workers (Kittel 1956, Berlincourt 1958), primarily due to our use of samples that were both single crystals and highly pure (R _278°K/R _4·2°K as large as 8000). Generally when the magneto resistance saturates, the Hall constant can be directly related to the Fermi surface shape; the essential conditions are summarized and several Hall constant calculations, using the Pippard model, are compared with the corresponding experimental values. Finally, the utility of Hall voltage data for distinguishing between different possible Fermi surface topologies is illustrated for the first time.