A new metallic compound has shattered a long standing barrier in heat management, conducting thermal energy nearly three times faster than the best conventional metals. The material, a special form of tantalum nitride, moves heat so efficiently that it rivals and in some cases surpasses the performance of exotic crystals that have dominated thermal records for years. For chipmakers, data center operators and electric vehicle designers, it signals a potential turning point in how the hottest parts of modern hardware are cooled.
Instead of relying on copper blocks, aluminum fins and ever more aggressive fans, engineers may soon be able to build heat spreaders directly from this super conducting metal. That prospect matters because the same devices that define the digital economy, from smartphones to artificial intelligence accelerators, are increasingly limited not by how fast they can compute but by how quickly they can shed heat.
How theta phase tantalum nitride rewrites the thermal rulebook
The breakthrough centers on a metallic phase of tantalum nitride that behaves in a way metals are not supposed to behave. In typical metals, electrons carry both charge and heat, and frequent scattering events inside the atomic lattice cap how fast thermal energy can move. In the new work, a UCLA led collaboration reports that a specific theta phase of tantalum nitride reaches a thermal conductivity of about 1,200 watts per meter kelvin, roughly three times higher than copper and far beyond what had been measured in any other metal, according to UCLA.
Jan and colleagues describe a multi institution effort in which a UCLA led team synthesized and tested this theta phase, showing that its thermal conductivity is not only ultrahigh but also robust across realistic device conditions. The group reports that the metallic compound reaches approximately 1,200 watts per meter kelvin, compared with the roughly 400 watts per meter kelvin that define the upper tier of conventional metals, a gap detailed in the multi institution study.
Why this metal behaves more like a crystal than copper
What makes the theta phase so unusual is that its heat transport is dominated by vibrations in the lattice, rather than by electrons alone, which gives it a hybrid character that blurs the line between metals and insulators. The UCLA led team found that metallic theta phase tantalum nitride combines a highly ordered crystal structure with strong bonding, which suppresses the scattering that normally throttles thermal conductivity in metals and allows heat to flow with an efficiency more often associated with carefully grown semiconducting crystals, a behavior highlighted in the UCLA led team report.
Jan and the researchers argue that this combination of metallic electrical behavior and crystal like thermal transport positions theta phase tantalum nitride as a fundamentally new class of thermal material. In their analysis, they frame it as a candidate for next generation thermal interfaces that could be integrated directly into chips or power modules, a view echoed in a separate summary that describes how materials with high thermal conductivity are essential for dissipating heat in electronics and that this compound now sits at the top of the known range of thermal conductivity among metals, according to a UCLA Led Team overview.
From lab curiosity to practical heat spreader
For any record setting material, the question is not just how impressive the number looks in a journal, but whether it can be manufactured and integrated into real devices. Jan and the UCLA researchers emphasize that theta phase tantalum nitride is metallic, which means it can in principle be deposited, patterned and contacted using tool sets that semiconductor fabs already understand, rather than requiring the kind of bespoke crystal growth that has limited other exotic heat conductors. In their words, Our research shows that theta phase tantalum nitride could be a fundamentally new and superior alternative for achieving higher thermal management performance, moving heat more efficiently than in conventional metals, a claim laid out in a CNSI summary.
Behind that optimism sits a heavy computational and experimental lift. The project relied on advanced modeling and simulation resources to predict how the theta phase would behave before it was grown and measured, and those calculations were backed by the UCLA Institute for Digital Research and Education. Computational support was provided by the UCLA Institute for Digital Research and Education’s Research Technology Group and Bridge, which helped the team map out the phonon and electron transport pathways that give the material its unusual properties, as detailed in a computational support note.
Diamond, boron arsenide and the race for ultimate heat flow
The tantalum nitride result lands in the middle of a broader race to push thermal conductivity to its physical limits, a race that has already seen diamond lose its long held crown. For decades, diamond reigned supreme, with a thermal conductivity of roughly 2,000 watts per meter kelvin, a benchmark that defined how researchers thought about the upper bound of heat flow in solids, as summarized in a Now overview that cites the figure 2,000. That ceiling has been challenged by boron arsenide, a compound that, when grown with exceptional purity, has demonstrated thermal conductivities exceeding 2,100 watts per meter kelvin at room temperature, according to experimental work that refined raw arsenic and improved synthesis methods for boron arsenide crystals, as described in a ScienceDaily report.
Researchers at the University of Houston have framed this as a fundamental shift in how scientists think about thermal limits. In a collaboration that included the University of California, Santa Barbara and Boston College, the University of Housto team showed that boron arsenide is now the best heat conductor among isotropic materials, a status that underscores how far crystal engineering has come, according to the Key Takeaways from that work. Nov coverage of the same breakthrough describes how Researchers at the University of Houston used advanced theory and experiment to confirm that boron arsenide smashes previous heat conduction records, a point emphasized in a What is this? analysis.
Why a record setting metal matters for chips, cars and data centers
Against that backdrop, the tantalum nitride result stands out because it brings record class thermal performance into a metallic platform that can plug directly into existing electronics. While boron arsenide and diamond are extraordinary heat spreaders, they are semiconducting or insulating, which complicates their use in many circuits and power modules. By contrast, theta phase tantalum nitride behaves as a metal, so it can both conduct electricity and wick heat away from hotspots, a dual role that makes it attractive for applications ranging from smartphone processors to power electronics in electric vehicles, as highlighted in a Metallic overview that notes the material is about three times more efficient than conventional metals.
At the same time, the boron arsenide story shows how far non metallic materials can go when purity and crystal quality are pushed to extremes. Scientists just found a material that beats diamond at its own game, with boron arsenide crystals that not only surpass diamond in thermal conductivity but also challenge the theoretical ceiling itself, according to a Scientists just found account. For chip designers, the emerging picture is that there will not be a single ultimate heat conductor, but a toolkit: ultrahigh conductivity metals like theta phase tantalum nitride for integrated interconnects and heat spreaders, and crystalline champions like boron arsenide for specialized thermal interfaces in the hottest, most demanding systems.
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