Originally discovered over a century ago, the classic Hall effect is the build up of charge—a voltage—that occurs on the sides of a conductor when the electric current running through it experiences a transverse magnetic field. The phenomenon is widely used for characterizing the properties of materials in the solid state and particularly for magnetic field sensors.

The Special Topics list of the hottest papers in Hall effect research over the past decade is led by the development of a hybrid Hall effect device showing unique promise as a magnetic field sensor, storage cell, or logic gate. The remaining articles in the top 20 ranking cover the spectrum of Hall effect phenomena that have been discovered since the early 1970s and are now being studied in a host of materials from atypical ferromagnets to high-tc and unconventional superconductors. These include the giant Hall effect, the integer and fractional quantum Hall effects, the anomalous Hall effect, theoretical studies of the spin Hall effect (in which spin-up and spin-down electrons accumulate on opposite sides of a sample), and the intrinsic spin Hall effect.

Since the spin Hall effect itself was demonstrated experimentally in 2004, the two-year list of highly cited articles in Hall effect research is dominated by experimental and theoretical analyses of this phenomenon. Ten of the top 20 papers are on the spin Hall effect or the intrinsic spin Hall effect. Other top 20 subjects include the microscopic nature of localization in the quantum Hall effect, the anomalous Hall effect in ferromagnetic superconductors, a radiation-induced oscillatory Hall effect, and studies of the Hall effect in cobalt-doped titanium-oxide films. The next generation of fractional quantum Hall effects is also discussed.

Methodology

To construct this database, papers were extracted based on title-supplied keywords for The Hall Effect. The keywords used were as follows: 

hall effect

The baseline time span for this database is 1995-December 31, 2005 (sixth bimonthly). The resulting database contained 1,559 (10 years) and  248 (2 years) papers; 3,367 authors; 68 countries; 208 journals; and 844 institutions.

Rankings

Once the database was in place, it was used to generate the lists of top 20 papers (two- and ten-year periods), authors, journals, institutions, and nations, covering a time span of 1995-2005 (sixth bimonthly, an 11-year period).

The top 20 papers are ranked according to total cites. Rankings for author, journal, institution, and country are listed in three ways: according to total cites, total papers, and total cites/paper. The paper thresholds and corresponding percentages used to determine scientist, institution, country, and journal rankings according to total cites/paper, and total papers respectively are as follows:

Entity:	Scientists	Institutions	Countries	Journals
Thresholds:	8	9	7	6
Percentage:	1%	5%	50%	20%

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