Description: The purpose of this SBIR phase I proposal is to design, develop and carry out the materials and process engineering studies to demonstrate the feasibility of processing the Next Generation High Thermal Conductivity Materials for thermal management. In these efforts - we propose the synthesis & processing of the Boron Arsenide in Nano Crystal, Nano rod and Nano Whisker forms that can provide an affordable simple material system with High Diamond like Thermal Conductivity to design and develop affordable next generation thermal management material systems. The proposed material that has been identified through First principle predictive computational studies as a cubic phase III-V boron semiconductor compound that is isotropic and can have a diamond like high thermal conductivity. The AMSENG seeks support from the NASA for the exploitation of the unique Next Generation new material systems to develop the needed processing science & engineering that can provide desired enhancement in the product performance along with the affordability for high heat flux acquisition and transport.

Benefits: The material and process engineering concept suggested in this proposal can not only help the fulfillment of technological gap and provide an affordable diamond like thermal conductor in Cubic BAs, but it can also arm us with the tools for the development of the survivable and high temperature capable affordable TMMS & TIMS for the space system components for NASA and its planetary as well as its needs in LEO and GEO; but can also provide success in other non NASA markets. In general NASA needs are more challenging and design requirements are aggressive than applications in other areas. Thus, the suggested efforts & success can be feasible only due to assembly of this possible unique interdisciplinary team and availability of unique conductive phases like few layer graphene and High K BNNTs from AMSENG.

As a strategy we shall target applications important to the military and commercial applications due to similarity of the needs of such applications to NASA needs. Following can be some to list a few: Military application: Power system electronics and avionics systems comprised of high heat flux components. Commercial applications: Challenging applications such as telecommunications relay stations, data farms, and computing centers would benefit from interface materials with lower resistivity.