Low‐temperature sintering and electrical properties of BBSZ glass‐doped ZnO‐based multilayer varistors

Abstract The effect of Bi 2 O 3 ‐B 2 O 3 ‐SiO 2 ‐ZnO glass (denoted as BBSZ) content on the densification, microstructure, and electrical properties of ZnO‐based multilayer varistors (MLVs) has been investigated. In ZnO‐based (MLVs), BBSZ acted as a promoter in ZnO grain growth, which increased the grain size of ZnO, resulting in a decrease in breakdown voltage. Results showed that the adding of BBSZ glass had an improvement in densification and overall properties of MLVs. It was found that a maximum value of 5.45 g/cm 3 of the bulk density and the optimum properties ( V 1mA = 27.28 V, α = 40.33, I L = 0.75 μA, I p = 35 A) of ZnO‐based MLVs were achieved with 3 wt% BBSZ glass sintered at 925°C for 3 hours.