Spintronics research. Coloured scanning tunnelling micrograph (STM) of interactions between a single cobalt atom and a gold surface. The ripples in the surface are electrons from the gold scattering from the defect on the surface. The topography of this atom is being used to research spin-based nanodevice structures that could be model quantum- mechanical systems for understanding quantum mechanical phenomena such as quantum entanglement and quantum decoherence. Studying these effects could allow the quantum property of spin to be used for the construction of computer chips on a far smaller scale than is currently possible. This research is being carried out by Prof. Yazdani at the Princeton Nanoscale Microscopy Laboratory (PNML), Princeton University, USA.