NTC (negative temperature coefficient) thermistors are semiconductor ceramics whose resistance decreases with increasing temperature, making them essential components in various temperature sensing applications. Typically, ceramic materials are sintered at high temperatures exceeding 1,150°C. However, in laminated devices incorporating internal electrodes, co-sintering can lead to cracking and mechanical failure due to mismatches in the thermal expansion coefficients between the ceramic layers and metal-based electrodes. Moreover, the use of noble metal electrodes increases production costs. To address these challenges, a low-temperature sintering approach is required. Previous studies have demonstrated that incorporating glass frit can reduce the sintering temperature of ceramics, although this often results in increased electrical resistance. In this study, NiMnCoO₄ (NMC) ceramics, as a representative NTC thermistor composition, were prepared with the addition of 10 wt% glass frit. To mitigate the resulting increase in resistivity, trace amounts (1 wt%) of various metal oxides, including CuO, ZnO, and MnO, were introduced. Among these, the addition of CuO notably decreased both the resistivity and B constant values. In contrast, MnO had little effect on resistivity, while ZnO led to an increase. With respect to the B25/85 constant, samples containing MnO and ZnO exhibited higher values than those without metal oxide additives. These findings indicate that the incorporation of 1 wt% CuO is effective in reducing the increased resistivity in NMC ceramics subjected to low-temperature sintering via glass frit addition.

NTC thermistors are essential components widely used for temperature sensing in various electronic sensor applications. However, conventional NTC thermistor ceramics typically require high sintering temperatures above 1150℃, necessitating the use of high-cost noble metal electrodes such as palladium (Pd) or platinum (Pt), which increases the overall manufacturing cost. In this study, low-melting-point oxides were successfully introduced as sintering aids to reduce the sintering temperature of NiMnCoO₄-based semiconducting ceramics. As the additive content increased, the B constant and average grain size exhibited an increasing trend, while the sample containing 5 wt% additives showed the lowest room-temperature resistivity. Furthermore, samples sintered at 1000℃ demonstrated slightly higher room-temperature resistivity and B constant values compared to those sintered at 1150℃. These results confirm that the addition of low-melting-point oxides is effective in lowering the sintering temperature of NiMnCoO₄ ceramics, suggesting the potential for reducing production costs and improving design flexibility in thermistor fabrication.

Herein, we report the manufacture of high-performance, ambipolar organic field-effect transistors (OFETs) and complementary-like electronic circuitry based on a blended, polymeric, semiconducting film. Relatively high and wellbalanced electron and hole mobilities were achieved by incorporating a small amount of ionic additives. The equivalent P-channel and N-channel properties of the ambipolar OFETs enabled the manufacture of complementary-like inverter circuits with a near-ideal switching point, high gain, and good noise margins, via a simple blanket spin-coating process with no additional patterning of each active P-type and N-type semiconductor layer.

The series connection-type superconducting fault current limiter (SFCL) with two magnetically coupled circuits was suggested and its effectiveness through the analysis on the current limiting and recovery characteristics was described. The fault current limiting characteristics of the proposed SFCL as well as the load voltage sag compensating characteristics according to the winding direction were investigated. To confirm the fault current limiting and the voltage sag suppressing characteristics of the this SFCL, the short-circuit tests for the simulated power system with the series connection-type SFCL were carried out. The series connection-type SFCL designed with the additive polarity winding was shown to perform more effective fault current limiting and load voltage sag compensating operations through the fast quench occurrence right after the fault appears and the fast recovery operation after the fault removes than that with the subtractive polarity winding.

The (Na0.52K0.44)(Nb0.9Sb0.06)O3-0.04dLiTaO3 (NKNS-LT) ceramics with various Cu2O concentration were prepared by the conventional solid state reaction method. The Cu2O content was varied in the range of 0.1~0.4 wt%. The effects of Cu on microstructure, crystallographic phase transition, and piezoelectric properties were investigated. The material with perovskite structure had a tetragonal phase (T1) when Cu2O concentration was less than 0.3 wt% and it transformed to another tetragonal phase (T2) when the Cu2O amount was greater than 0.3 wt%. The phase boundary between T1 and T2 phases appeared at around 0.3 wt% of Cu2O concentration. The piezoelectric properties were shown the maximum values at the composition of the phase boundary. The electro-mechanical coupling factor (kp) was 0.42 and the piezoelectric charge constant (d33) was 245 pC/N at the 0.3 wt% of Cu2O concentration.

In this paper, we investigated the fault current limiting and the load voltage sag suppressing characteristics of the flux-lock type SFCL, designed with the additive polarity winding, according to the variations of turn number`s ratio and the comparative analysis between the resistive type and the flux-lock type SFCLs were performed as well. From the analysis for the short-circuit tests, the flux-lock type SFCL designed with the larger turn number`s ratio was shown to perform more effective fault current limiting and load voltage sag suppressing operations compared to the flux-lock type SFCL designed with the lower turn number`s ratio through the fast quench occurrence of the high-TC superconducting (HTSC) element comprising the flux-lock type SFCL. In addition, the recovery time of the flux-lock type SFCL after the fault removed could be confirmed to be shorter in case of the flux-lock type SFCL designed with the lower turn number ratio.