February 22, 2002: Sixteen years ago, two Swiss scientists won the Nobel Prize for the discovery that some magnetic insulators become superconductors at extremely low temperatures. No one has yet figured out what makes these insulators, which usually have a significant copper component, function as superconductors at higher temperatures.

By turning the problem around (i.e., asking what makes some superconductors become magnetic insulators), Simon Fraser University physicist, Igor Herbut, has stumbled on high temperature superconductors' paradoxical nature.

As reported in the January 28 issue of Physical Review Letters he has developed a mathematical model that shows why materials that superconduct electricity at relatively high temperatures are magnetic insulators in their natural state. As Herbut explains, "When you subtract electrons you discover these superconductors are inherently unstable towards magnetic insulation." Herbut hopes a detailed analysis of high temperature superconductors' Yin Yang transformation will lead to clues on how to control the process. Such knowledge may have both research and industrial applications.

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