The HERMES experiment studies the spin structure of the nucleon using the 27.6 GeV longitudinally polarized positron beam of HERA and an internal target of pure gases. Recently, HERMES presented preliminary results on the deuteron spin structure function g₁^d in the kinematic range 0.0021 < x< 0.85 and 0.1 Q² < 20 GeV ² based on a restricted data set. Here, new, precise results are presented using the superior statistics of the 2000 data taking period. A reduction of the systematic uncertainty which could be achieved in this preliminary analysis relies in particular on the excellent performance of HERA and of the HERMES target. The data will be discussed in comparison with previous measurements performed at SLAC and CERN.

PACS numbers: 13.60.Hb, 13.88.+e