(July 5, 2016) Thanks to a research grant awarded from the Office of Naval Research for pursuing “high risk-high reward” scientific and technological breakthroughs, six universities are working to develop cost-effective and high-quality substitutes for diamond as a heat conductor.
Diamond was recently discovered to be the best available heat conductor, however it is too rare and expensive to produce for “widespread applications,” warned Boston College News. Boston College Professor of Physics, David Broido, and the university team “will try to confirm the prediction made by Broido and collaborators that the compound, boron arsenide, can offer diamond-like performance at reasonable cost”, as part of this project.
“The team’s challenge is to make high quality boron arsenide, to confirm the performance predictions through measurements, and more broadly to understand heat flow in materials at a fundamental level,” said Broido to the Boston College News.
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