Nonmetallic crystals with high thermal conductivity

Abstract

Nonmetallic crystals transport heat primarily by phonons at room temperature and below. There are only a few nonmetallic crystals which can be classed as high thermal conductivity solids, in the sense of having a thermal conductivity of > 1 W/cmK at 300K. Thermal conductivity measurements on natural and synthetic diamond, cubic BN, BP and AIN confirm that all of them are high thermal conductivity solids. Studies have been made of the effect on the thermal conductivity of nitrogen impurities in diamond, and oxygen impurities in AIN. The nitrogen impurities scatter phonons mostly from the strain field, the oxygen impurities scatter phonons mostly from the mass defects caused by aluminum vacancies. Pure A1N as well as pure SiC, BeO, BP and BeS conduct heat almost as well as does copper at room temperature, while pure natural and synthetic diamonds conduct heat five times better than copper. All of the nonmetallic solids that are known to possess high thermal conductivity have either the diamond-like, boron carbide, or graphite crystal structure. There are twelve different diamond-like crystals, a few boron carbide-type crystals, and two graphite structure crystals that have high thermal conductivity. Analyses of the rock-salt, fluorite, quartz, corundum and other structures show no candidates for this class. The four rules for finding crystals with high thermal conductivity are that the crystal should have (1) low atomic mass, (2) strong bonding, (3) simple crystal structure, and (4) low anharmonicity. The prime example of such a solid is diamond, which has the highest known thermal conductivity at 300K.