Impact of Symmetry on Anisotropic Magnetoresistance in Textured Ferromagnetic Thin Films.

We report on the magnetoresistance of textured films consisting of 3d-ferromagnetic layers sandwiched by Pt. While the conventional cos(2)phi behavior of the anisotropic magnetoresistance (AMR) is found when the magnetization M is varied in the film plane, cos(2n)theta contributions (2n <= 6) exist for rotating M in the plane perpendicular to the current. This finding is explained by the symmetry-adapted modeling of AMR of textured films demonstrating that the cos(2)theta behavior cannot be used as a fingerprint for the presence of spin Hall magnetoresistance (SMR). Further, the interfacial MR contributions for Pt/Ni/Pt contradict the SMR behavior confirming the dominant role of AMR in all-metallic systems.