Semiconductors are the most important part of modern electronics. A good semiconductor should have the right band gap, high carrier mobility in both electrons and holes, and high thermal conductivity, but the semiconductors currently available do not meet the requirements. Boron arsenide (BAs) seems to be the ideal semiconductor. It has a bandgap of ~2.1 eV, carrier mobility above 1400 cm² s^-1 V^-1 for both the electrons and holes, isotropic thermal conductivity higher than 1300 W m^-1 K^-1 at room temperature.

In this webinar, the speaker, Zhifeng Ren, will present on what has been done and what is expected for this special material.

Zhifeng Ren is a M D Anderson Chair Professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Houston, and director of the Texas Center for Superconductivity at the University of Houston (TcSUH). He obtained his PhD from the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in China in 1990. He was a postdoctoral fellow and research faculty member at SUNY Buffalo (1990–1999) before joining Boston College as an associate professor in 1999. He specializes in fields such as nanostructured thermoelectric materials, non-noble-metal catalysts for water electrolysis, novel semiconductor boron arsenide single crystals with ultrahigh thermal conductivity and carrier mobility, sodium nanofluid for enhanced oil recovery and cleaning, superconductor levitated super system for energy transport and storage and people/goods transport.