Physicists create superinsulators

Physicists create superinsulators U.S. and European scientists have discovered a fundamental state of matter that they say opens new directions of inquiry in condensed matter physics. Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory, in collaboration with several European institutions, have created superinsulators that they say might result in a new generation of microelectronic devices. Led by Argonne senior scientist Valerii Vinokur and Russian scientist Tatyana Baturina, the researchers from Belgium, Germany, Russia and the United States fashioned a thin film of titanium nitride that they then chilled to near absolute zero. When they tried to pass a current through the material, the researchers noticed its resistance suddenly increased by a factor of 100,000 once the temperature dropped below a certain threshold. The same sudden change also occurred when the researchers decreased the external magnetic field. Like superconductors, which have applications in many different areas of physics, the scientists say superinsulators could eventually find their way into a number of products, including circuits, sensors and battery shields.