Superinsulators

Superconductors, materials with zero electrical resistance, have been known for decades, but their counterpoint materials, superinsulators, could transform materials research and electronics design. Now, an international team of scientists has created a superinsulating material that, at close to absolute zero, has an electrical resistance 100,000 times higher than its room temperature value.

Valerii Vinokur and colleagues at Argonne National Laboratory, and others working in Belgium, Germany, and Russia, have prepared a very thin film of titanium nitride, using vacuum deposition techniques, with a view to finding a superinsulator.¹ As with superconductors, which have many applications in particle accelerators, spectrometers, MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) machines, and magnetic-levitation trains, the unique properties of superinsulators could be used to improve all kinds of electrical and electronic circuits, sensors and battery shields to prevent premature discharge or short circuits.