Heat conduction record with tantalum nitride

Tantalum nitride can concuct heat faster than almost all other materials - How can we remove heat from computer chips as fast as possible' At TU Wien, a metal compound has now been identified that is particularly well suited for this purpose. A thermos bottle has the task of preserving the temperature - but sometimes you want to achieve the opposite: Computer chips generate heat that must be dissipated as quickly as possible so that the chip is not destroyed. This requires special materials with particularly good heat conduction properties. In collaboration with groups from China and the United States, a research team from TU Wien therefore set out to find the optimal heat conductor. They finally found what they were looking for in a very specific form of tantalum nitride - no other known metallic material has a higher thermal conductivity. In order to be able to identify this record-breaking material, they first had to analyse which processes play a role in heat conduction in such materials at the atomic level. The results have now been published in the scientific journal "Physical Review Letters".