Electrical property of Al/La/Cu modified ZnO-based negative temperature coefficient (NTC) ceramics with high ageing stability

N egative temperature coefficient (NTC) ceramics based on simple ZnO were prepared and investigated in present work, where slight amount of Al- and La- ions were added as semiconductor dopants, and Cu-ions were selected as the sintering agent and property modificator. All the prepared ZnO-based ceramics have a wurtzite structure and show typical NTC characteristic. For various contents of Al-, La- and Cu- ions in ZnO-based ceramics, ρ 25 can be adjusted from 0.65 kΩ cm to 3.28 MΩ cm, and B values were obtained in range of 2500 K to 5850 K. The ageing treatment at 125 °C for 600 h in air revealed that the ZnO-based ceramics have high thermal stability with the resistance shift < 2%. The complex impedance spectra were applied to analyze the electrical performance.