Measurement and simulation of anisotropic magnetoresistance in single GaAs/MnAs core/shell nanowires.

We report four probe measurements of the low field magnetoresistance (MR) in single core/shell GaAs/MnAs nanowires (NWs) synthesized by molecular beam epitaxy, demonstrating clear signatures of anisotropic magnetoresistance that track the field-dependent magnetization. A comparison with micromagnetic simulations reveals that the principal characteristics of the magnetoresistance data can be unambiguously attributed to the nanowire segments with a zinc blende GaAs core. The direct correlation between magnetoresistance, magnetization, and crystal structure provides a powerful means of characterizing individual hybrid ferromagnet/semiconductor nanostructures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]