An unlikely material, cubic boron（硼） arsenide（砷化物）, could deliver an extraordinarily high thermal conductivity -- on par with（与……同等水平） the industry standard set by costly diamond -- researchers report in the current issue of the journal Physical Review Letters. The discovery that the chemical compound of boron and arsenic could rival diamond, the best-known thermal conductor, surprised the team of theoretical physicists from Boston College and the Naval Research Laboratory. But a new theoretical approach allowed the team to unlock the secret to boron arsenide's potentially extraordinary ability to conduct heat.

Smaller, faster and more powerful microelectronic devices pose the daunting（使人畏缩的） challenge of removing the heat they generate. Good thermal conductors placed in contact with such devices channel heat rapidly away from unwanted "hot spots" that decrease the efficiency of these devices and can cause them to fail.

Diamond is the most highly prized of gemstones（宝石）. But, beyond its brilliance and beauty in jewelry, it has many other remarkable properties. Along with its carbon cousins graphite and graphene, diamond is the best thermal conductor around room temperature, having thermal conductivity of more than 2,000 watts per meter per Kelvin, which is five times higher than the best metals such as copper. Currently, diamond is widely used to help remove heat from computer chips and other electronic devices. Unfortunately, diamond is rare and expensive, and high quality synthetic diamond is difficult and costly to produce. This has spurred a search for new materials with ultra-high thermal conductivities, but little progress has been made in recent years.

The high thermal conductivity of diamond is well understood, resulting from the lightness of the constituent carbon atoms and the stiff chemical bonds between them, according to co-author David Broido, a professor of physics at Boston College. On the other hand, boron arsenide was not expected to be a particularly good thermal conductor and in fact had been estimated -- using conventional evaluation criteria -- to have a thermal conductivity 10 times smaller than diamond.