Researchers in the UK and Sweden have created a new material that could cut costs in the electronics industry. Lidija Siller at the University of Newcastle and colleagues in Durham and Göteborg have developed a simple method to mass-produce thin films of gold nitride. In addition to being cheaper than the gold-plating methods that are currently used to make electronic components, gold nitride also offers improved performance (S Krishnamurthy et al. 2003 Phys. Rev. B to be published).