Don Eigler

Don Eigler is a physicist at IBM's Almaden Research Center in San Jose, California, where he has been the leader of the Low-Temperature Scanning Tunneling Microscopy Project.  His group’s research is aimed at understanding the physics of nanometer-scale structures and exploring the applications of nanometer-scale structures to computing. 

In 1989 Don demonstrated the ability to manipulate individual atoms with a low-temperature scanning tunneling microscope, spelling out “I-B-M” with individual xenon atoms.  Since then, his group’s results include the invention of "quantum corrals," discovery of the "quantum mirage" effect, demonstration of a fundamentally new way to transport information through a solid, the demonstration of nanometer-scale logic circuits based on Molecular Cascades, and the invention of a powerful new technique to study the magnetic properties of nanometer-scale structures: Spin Excitation Spectroscopy.   

Don received both his bachelors and doctorate degrees from the University of California San Diego and was named its Outstanding Alumnus of the year in 1999.  Don has been recognized for his accomplishments with the Davisson-Germer Prize, the Dannie Heineman Prize, the Newcomb-Cleveland Prize, the Grand Award for Science and Technology, the Nanoscience Prize, and numerous honorary lectureships including the Bethe Lectureship at Cornell University, the Loeb Lectureship at Harvard University and a Regents Lectureship at the University of California Los Angeles.  In 2002 he received an honorary doctorate from the Technical University of Delft.  He is a fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.  In 2004 he was elected a member of the Max Planck Society, Germany’s most prestigious scientific organization. In 2007 he was appointed a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Harvard University School of  Engineering and Applied Sciences .  He was named an IBM Fellow in 1993, the highest technical honor in the IBM Corporation.

Don lives with his wife Roslyn in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California.  In addition to his professional pursuits, he is building his skills as a trainer of service dogs, specializing in dogs that assist people with mobility impairments.