IntroductionThe spin degree of freedom plays an important role in the fractional quantum Hall effect (FQHE) [1]. It is responsible for a variety of phenomena such as phase transitions between different ground states, elementary spin excitations and interactions of the electronic system with the nuclei. This was initially not obvious since the first approach to solve this strongly correlated many-body problem considered all quantum Hall states at filling factors less than ν = 1 to be spin polarized [2]. Even though this indeed applies to fractional filling factors 1 m ν = / , where m is an odd integer, it was soon pointed out that for other fractional filling factors at sufficiently low densities, QH ground states with partial or zero spin polarization do exist [3].These states are energetically favorable whenever the exchange part of the Coulomb interaction becomes of the order of the Zeeman energy. Furthermore, at the transition, a domain pattern of differently polarized phases is believed to form [4][5][6][7]. In this review, we report on spectroscopic evidence for the existence of these domains, based on NMR and SAW (surface-acoustic wave) measurements. We focus primarily on the unpolarized-polarized phase transition at filling factor ν = 2/3, al-