Plenary Speech: Spin Excitation Spectroscopy with the STM

We have extended the spectroscopic abilities of the scanning tunneling microscope to include the measurement of spin-excitation spectra. Utilizing spin-excitation spectroscopy as our primary tool, we are now capable of extracting exchange coupling energies, anisotropy energies, and information on the spin configuration of nanometer-scale structures. What we learn from these experiments will hopefully allow us to engineer the "energy landscape" of a system of spins in order to achieve nanometer-scale binary logic circuits that operate using only the spin degree of freedom.