The mechanism of lifetime improvement through vanadium addition to multilayer ceramic capacitor with nickel electrode

Abstract

One of the methods to improve the lifetime of a multilayer ceramic capacitor with Ni electrode (Ni-MLCC) is vanadium addition. With the addition of vanadium, insulation resistance deteriorates and reliability improves. The resistance elements of the three resistor-capacitor electrical equivalent circuit: dielectric-electrode interface, grain boundary, and grain, all deteriorated. In particular, the interface resistance significantly deteriorated with the increase in vanadium. The experimental results suggest that the high interface resistance is not always necessary to improve reliability of Ni-MLCCs. It is deduced that oxygen vacancy formation is suppressed with vanadium addition from the first principles calculation and the thermally stimulated depolarization current analysis. Therefore, the decrease in oxygen concentration is the main factor for improving reliability with vanadium addition.