Direct-Write Fabrication of Zinc Oxide Varistors

Zinc oxide (ZnO)-based pastes with tailored rheological properties have been developed for direct-write fabrication of thick-film varistor elements in highly integrated, multifunctional electroceramic devices. Such pastes exhibited pseudoplastic behavior with a low shear apparent viscosity of roughly 1 × 10⁴ Pa·s. Upon aging, the pastes attained printable, steady-state viscosities of approximately 3 × 10² Pa·s at 10 s⁻¹. Square and rectangular elements were patterned on dense alumina substrates and sintered at varying temperatures between 800° and 1250°C. Varistor elements fired at 900°C exhibited nonlinearity coefficients (α= 30) that were equivalent to high-density (>95%) varistors formed by cold isostatic pressing at 100 MPa (15 ksi) of a similar chemically derived powder heat-treated under analogous conditions.