Electroceramics
EBB 443 – Technical Ceramics
What is an ion?
An ion is a positive or negative loaded atom
caused by electron deficiency or electron
excess.
This electron deficiency/excess arises at the
reaction of two atoms (ionic connection).
Positive loaded ions are called cations and
negative loaded ions are called anions.
In ionic crystal, the individual lattice atoms
transfer electron between each other to form
positivily charged cations and negatively
charged anions.
Ionic Conduction
d d
distance distance
The slopes in
Arrhenius plots are
utilized to calculate
the activation energy,
Q or Ea.
Ionic Conduction
Slope = - Q/k
For SiO2 from graph:
Slope = (ln 10-7 – ln 10-14)/(1.5x10-3 – 2.55x10-3)
= [ln (10-7/10-14)]/(-1x10-3)
= ln 107/(-1x10-3) = - 1.612x104
Q = (1.612x104)x(1.3806x10-23) = 2.225x10-19 J
Q = 1.39 eV (1 eV = 1.6x10-19 J)
Ionic Conduction
800 600 400
T(oC)
ln
Sometimes,
ln vs. 1/T plot will
give us two (2) line
regions representating
of two different Q
values.
1/T
Some ceramic
resistors exhibit
high value of the
temperature
coefficient of
resistance (TCR)
and they may be
negative (NTC) or
positive (PTC).
Temperature Sensitive Resistor
Circuit to be
Source VDR protected
Varistors-VDR
Ceramics based on SiC and ZnO are two materials in
everyday use for VDR.
The VDR behaviour in ZnO varistors for example is
governed by electron states that are formed on the surfaces
of crystals as a consequence of the discontinuity.
These surface states act as acceptors for electrons from the
n-type semiconductor.
Electrons will be withdrawn from region near the surface and
replaced by a positive space charge.
Oppositely oriented Schottky barrier will be created at
surface of neihbouring crystals so that a high resistance will
be offered to electron flow in either direction.
Illustrations of actual microstructure of a varistor
Basic principles of Varistors-VDR
At low applied fields small thermally activated currents pass over the
reverse biased junction.
At high fields tunneling through the junction will occur, accounting for the
low resistance.
The behaviour is similar in some respects to Zener diodes.
From varistor I-V characteristic, the linear part can be represented by the
relation,
I k UI
Where kI is a constant and falls off at low voltages.
If I1 and I2 are currents at voltages that differ by factor of 10,
I1
log10 , I1 I 2
I2
Basic principles of Varistors-VDR
Alternatively, U kV I
where
1 / and kV k I1 /
P IU k I U 1
with = 25, a 10 % increase in voltage would increase
the power dissipation by a factor about 2.5.