Cubic Boron Arsenide | Is a better semiconductor than Silicon possible?

Cubic Boron Arsenide is rapidly becoming the favourite next-generation semiconductor material, offering improved performance and heat dissipation over silicon.

One of the most important properties of c-BA is its high thermal conductivity, which makes it an attractive material for use in high-power electronic devices.

C-BA has a thermal conductivity almost 10 times greater than that of silicon, and is only surpassed by diamond and isotopically enriched cubic boron nitride.

Another important property of c-BA is its good electron and hole mobility.

Unlike silicon, which is good for electron mobility but not for hole mobility, c-BA has good mobility for both electrons and holes (positively charged electrons).

This makes it an ideal material for building high-performance semiconductor devices.

C-BA also has a good bandgap, which is an important property for semiconductor materials. The bandgap determines the energy required to move an electron from the valence band to the conduction band.

C-BA’s bandgap is similar to that of silicon, which means it can potentially be used in a wide range of electronic and optoelectronic applications.

One of the challenges of using c-BA as a semiconductor is its synthesis and processing. The material is difficult to synthesize and process, which has limited its widespread use.

However, researchers are making progress in improving the synthesis and processing techniques, and are exploring new methods for producing c-BA with better quality and purity.

A Cubic Boron Arsenide semiconductor would have less resistance for both positive and negative charges

Boron arsenide has the potential to be a highly desirable material for use as a semiconductor due to its exceptional mobility for both electrons and holes which are the positive and negative charges in a semiconductor, respectively.

This quality allows for less resistance in the transport of both charges in a device, making it a ideal semiconductor material.

While silicon has a good electron mobility, it falls short in hole mobility and similarly, other materials like gallium arsenide have a good electron mobility but poor hole mobility.

Heat dissipation in high-density devices

Cubic Boron Arsenide’s superior thermal conductivity makes it a viable solution to the problem of heat dissipation in high-density devices.

With electronic components becoming smaller and more densely packed, efficient heat dissipation becomes increasingly important to prevent efficiency and safety issues.

Cubic Boron Arsenide as a potential material for photovoltaic and light detection applications

Cubic Boron Arsenide’s transport properties of photocarriers could make it a suitable material for photovoltaic and light detection applications.

This, coupled with its improved charge mobility and thermal conductivity, gives it an edge over silicon and other semiconductor materials.

Researchers from MIT, University of Houston, and other institutions have discovered that cubic boron arsenide, a material with high mobility for both electrons and holes and exceptional thermal conductivity, is the best semiconductor material found to date, and possibly the best one ever.

Early research had theoretically predicted that Cubic boron arsenide would have high thermal conductivity and it was later proved experimentally in three separate papers in 2018.

A prediction made back in 2018 “that cubic boron arsenide would also have very high mobility for both electrons and holes” has now been confirmed experimentally made possible by advances in ultrafast laser grating systems at MIT.

The electronic properties of cubic boron arsenide were initially predicted based on quantum mechanical density function calculations made by MIT professor of mechanical engineering Gang Chen’s group, and those predictions have now been validated through experiments conducted at MIT, using optical detection methods on samples made by Zhifeng Ren and members of the team at the University of Houston.

Scanning ultrafast electron microscopy has confirmed the potential of cubic boron arsenide as the next-generation semiconductor. Researchers from UC Santa Barbara have revealed the secret to its high thermal conductivity.

Bolin Liao, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering, and his team were able to watch how electric charge moved in a new semiconductor material using a special imaging technique.

The technique, called scanning ultrafast electron microscopy, allowed the team to create movies of the generation and transport processes of the electric charge in this material.

This material is known as a III-V semiconductor, and it has excellent electrical and thermal properties.

The team found another beneficial property that adds to the material’s potential as a great semiconductor, which is described in their study published in the journal Matter.