This award provides partial support to the 2006 Gordon Research Conference on Magnetic Nanostructures. This is a biennial conference bringing together world leaders in their respective areas of expertise to openly discuss the latest findings in topics related to fundamental magnetism at the nanometer length scale and femto-second time scale. This meeting is highly beneficial for furthering both fundamental science and technological applications. The more applied field of spintronics (the use of the magnetic property of electrons known as 'spin' in place of their electrical charge in devices) is rapidly evolving as a result of many of these findings. There will be a considerable amount of information exchange resulting in a worldwide view of the future directions of research and applications in this field. It is expected that the conference setting will promote the start of new international collaborations. An important purpose of this meeting is to provide an opportunity for young scientists, postdoctorals and graduate students to learn about some of the current topics of interest and to interact with the leaders of this field in an informal setting.
