Strong Temperature Dependence of Thermal Conductivity in High-Purity Cubic Boron Arsenide

Materials with high thermal conductivity are needed to conduct heat away from hot spots in high power electronics and optoelectronic devices. Cubic boron arsenide (c-BAs) has a high thermal conductivity due to its special phonon dispersion relation. Previous experimental studies of c-BAs report a room-temperature thermal conductivity between 1000 and 1300 W m-1 K-1. We synthesized high purity isotopically enriched c-BAs single crystals with room-temperature thermal conductivity of around 1500 W m-1 K-1. Using time-domain thermoreflectance (TDTR), we measured thermal conductivity and found a 1/T2 temperature dependence between 300 K and 600 K - slightly stronger than predictions from state-of-the-art theoretical models. Brillouin and Raman scattering revealed minimal changes in phonon frequencies over the same temperature range, suggesting that the observed 1/T2 dependence is not caused by temperature dependent changes in phonon dispersion. To probe defect densities in the BAs crystals we studied, we conducted transient reflectivity microscopy (TRM) measurements of absorption at sub-bandgap photon energies. We observe a correlation between TRM signal intensity and thermal conductivity. Notably, samples with thermal conductivity near 1500 W m-1 K-1 still exhibited nonzero TRM signals, suggesting the presence of defects despite the high thermal conductivity.