UH Physicist Joins Project to Develop New High Thermal Conducting Material
A University of Houston physicist will participate in a $7.5 million collaboration to develop a new material with thermal conductivity higher than that of diamonds.
The work, funded by the U.S. Navy’s Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative, involves researchers from around the country, working to create an effective and affordable thermal conductor of boron arsenide.
Zhifeng Ren, MD Anderson Professor of physics at UH, said previous research predicted that boron arsenide would perform better than diamond as a thermal conductor. A thermal conductor allows energy, in the form of heat, to be transferred within the material; electronic devices require high thermal conductors in order to avoid overheating.
Ren will receive $1.3 million to study the material in single crystals or thin film.