Abstract
Although several kinds of conduction mechanism of PTC thermistor have been reported, there were few satisfying results. In this paper, the reported conduction mechanism theories were scrutinized and analyzed by using the experimental results. PTC thermistors for this study were manufactured by adding Sb$\_$2/O$\_$3/, AI$\_$2/O$\_$3/, TiO$\_$2/, and SiO$\_$2/ to BaTiO$\_$3/, and by sintering it at different temperatures. In order to analyze the conduction mechanism, R-T characteristics and its frequency dependence of specimens were measured. And also, the structures of specimens were studied. Especially this paper emphasized the explanation of the resistivity characteristics as the grain growth state of PTC thermistor specimens with respect to soaking temperature. According to the results, the resistivity of PTC thermistor whose grain was formed by semiconducting, was independent to the grain size at room temperature. For small and uniform grain size, the slope of the resistivity near the Curie temperature and the resistivity above the Curie temperature became greater and PTCR effect was improved.