“Aging,” defined as the drift of resistance with temperature after 1000 h, was investigated for iron manganite temperature coefficient thermistors. For these devices, aging is relatively large, about 10%. The cationic distributions before and after aging were determined by Mössbauer spectroscopy. These distributions explain all the x-ray diffraction and correlated electrical data. The origin of the aging observed on iron manganites thermistors has been identified. It is due to the migration of Fe3+ ions from tetrahedral to octahedral sites of the spinel structure in order to reach a structural equilibrium.
