Temperature Coefficient - Negative Temperature Coefficient

A negative temperature coefficient (NTC) occurs when a physical property (such as thermal conductivity or electrical resistivity) of a material lowers with increasing temperature, typically in a defined temperature range. For most materials, electrical resistivity will increase with increasing temperature.

Materials with a negative temperature coefficient have been used in floor heating since 1971. The negative temperature coefficient avoids excessive local heating beneath carpets, bean bag chairs, mattresses etc., which can damage wooden floors, and may infrequently cause fires.

Most ceramics exhibit NTC behaviour, which is governed by an Arrhenius equation over a wide range of temperatures:

where R is resistance, A and B are constants, and T is absolute temperature (K). The constant B is related to the energies required to form and move the charge carriers responsible for electrical conduction – hence, as the value of B decreases, the material becomes insulating. Practical and commercial NTC resistors aim to combine modest resistance with a value of B that provides good sensitivity to temperature. Such is the importance of the B constant value, that it is possible to characterize NTC thermistors using the B parameter equation:

where is resistance at temperature . Therefore, many materials that produce acceptable values of include materials that have been alloyed or possess variable cation valence states and thus contain a high natural defect center concentration. The value of B strongly depends on the energy required to dissociate the charge carriers that are used for the electrical conduction from these defect centers.