A research team from the University of Houston in the United States recently published results in Materials Today, confirming that the thermal conductivity of Boron Arsenide (BAs), a compound semiconductor composed of boron and arsenic, can reach 2,...
A research team from the University of Houston in the United States recently published results in Materials Today, confirming that the thermal conductivity of Boron Arsenide (BAs), a compound semiconductor composed of boron and arsenic, can reach 2,100 W/mK at room temperature, surpassing diamond experimentally for the first time, and is hailed as a major breakthrough in the field of thermal conductivity in the past decade.
Boron arsenide is a III–V compound semiconductor composed of boron (B) and arsenic (As). It also has the characteristics of high thermal conductivity, wide energy gap, and high carrier mobility.
Compared with diamonds, which must be synthesized under high-pressure and high-temperature conditions, boron arsenide can be prepared by chemical vapor transport (CVT) or chemical vapor deposition (CVD) in a normal pressure environment. The process is simple and cost-effective. It is also compatible with existing semiconductor processes and has practical application potential.
The research team stated that thermal energy is mainly transferred by phonons in crystals. The key reason why boron arsenide can exhibit ultra-high thermal conductivity lies in the huge frequency difference between its acoustic phonons and optical phonons, which greatly suppresses energy scattering and enables nearly lossless heat flow.
The team further purified the arsenic raw material, reduced crystal defects, and measured it using the "Time Domain Thermal Reflectance Method (TDTR)". The results showed that the thermal conductivity of multiple batches of samples stably reached 2,100 W/mK.
Compared with graphene (diamond), which has directional thermal conductivity, boron arsenide is an isotropic material that can effectively conduct heat and is more suitable as a highly thermally conductive interface between chips and heat dissipation modules. As the power consumption of chips and 3D stacked chips continues to rise, the demand for heat dissipation becomes increasingly severe. In addition to technologies such as liquid cooling and air cooling, innovation in the nature of materials has also become key.
Boron arsenide is expected to become the next generation of high thermal conductivity materials and be used for heat dissipation in power semiconductors, data center servers and AI chip packaging, opening a new direction for thermal management of high-power computing.
UH Researchers Help Break Thermal Conductivity Barrier with Boron Arsenide Discovery
