THE EFFECTS OF ND2O3 ADDITIVES AND AL2O3-SIO2-TIO2 SINTERING AIDS ON THE ELECTRICAL-RESISTIVITY OF (BA,SR)TIO3 PTCR CERAMICS

Abstract

The influences of Nd donors and Al2O3-SiO2-TiO2 (AST) sintering aids on the electrical properties of (Ba,Sr)TiO3 materials have been investigated. The room-temperature resistivity and the temperature coefficient of the anomalous resistivity rise were used to characterize the performance of the samples. From derivations based on the Heywang-Jonker barrier model, both characterizing parameters are expected to increase as a result of higher acceptor-state density at the grain boundary. The surface acceptor density, whose value was extracted from the slope in the Arrhenius plot of resistivity versus 1/(T epsilon(m)), where epsilon(m) is the measured permittivity and T the absolute temperature, was found to decrease with the Nd content and increase with the AST dopant. A satisfactory interpretation of the observed variations in resistivity-temperature curves caused by additions of various dopants was thus obtained in the light of the resultant acceptor state density.