Magnetic and electrical properties of Fe90Ta10 thin films

•We have synthesized Fe90Ta10 thin films by a pulsed laser deposition method and carried out studies related to fundamental magnetism and Hall Effect.•The change of electronic structure of Fe (with 3d6 electronic configuration) due to Ta (with 5d3 electronic configuration) has been found to increase the spin-orbit interactions.•These interactions play major role in electron transport phenomena such as Hall effect and magnetoresistance.•One of the interesting aspects of our studies has been the observation of Extraordinary Hall Effect (EHE) in the Fe90Ta10 thin films which makes them suitable for usage in magnetic field sensors, memory, or logic devices.•Ease of fabrication is an additional advantage of EHE based magnetic sensors. Fe90Ta10 (Fe-Ta) thin films, deposited using a pulsed laser deposition (PLD) method, have been found to exhibit characteristics of a soft ferromagnetic material with very low coercivities (1–10 mT) and saturation magnetization ~1.6 × 106 A/m. Our temperature dependent magnetization data at several fields (0.1–3 T) have conclusively detected the anharmonic term in the magnon dispersion relation. Moreover, the rigid-band model for metallic alloys can predict correctly the magnetic moment of ~2 µB as found by us from the above magnetization data of Fe90Ta10. We have also observed an Extraordinary Hall Effect (EHE) in these films. The extrinsic quantum mechanical side-jump mechanism as well as the intrinsic mechanism (due to the Berry phase curvatures) are responsible for the EHE varying here as the square of the electrical resistivity. Thus, our interpretation of the data at every stage is backed by theoretical considerations.