Anomalous Hall effect and anisotropic magnetoresistance of molecular beam epitaxy grown Cr2Te3 thin films

•High quality Cr2Te3 epitaxial films were grown on SrTiO3 (111) substrates using MBE.•The optimal growth temperature of the Cr2Te3 films was 275 °C.•Cr2Te3 films show perpendicular magnetic anisotropy and anisotropic magnetoresistance.•Cr2Te3 films show coupled electronic and magnetic phase transitions.•Negative magnetoresistance can be explained by electronic phase separation scenario. High-quality Cr2Te3 epitaxial thin films with thicknesses ranging from 2.5 to 30 nm have been epitaxially grown on SrTiO3(111) single-crystal substrates using molecular beam epitaxy. The optimal growth temperature of the films was found to be 275 °C. All Cr2Te3 films show semiconductor-to-metal transition which is coupled with the paramagnetic-to-ferromagnetic transition at TC = 175 K. Consequently, all Cr2Te3 films show negative magnetoresistance effect which is strongest near TC and can be understood within the framework of electronic phase separation scenario. Both anomalous Hall effect and out-of-plane magnetic hysteresis loops show that all Cr2Te3 films have perpendicular magnetic anisotropy with the easy magnetization axis along the c-axis of the films. With decreasing film thickness the coercivity increases and reaches 10 kOe for the thinnest 2.5-nm film. Magnetoresistance measurements at different angles between the direction of the magnetic field and the easy magnetization axis reveal that Cr2Te3 films show anisotropic magnetoresistance whose out-of-plane values are larger than those of in-plane ones.