To provide a powder material applicable, e.g. to the structural material for paste for an internal electrode hardly easy to cause the structural defects of a laminated ceramic capacitor, to provide a method for producing it, to provide thick film electrically conductive paste using this powder material and to provide a laminated ceramic capacitor using this paste.

This powder material is composed of a core material composed of Ni particles and a surface layer composed of the oxide of one or more kinds selected from Al, Zr, Ti, Si, Pb, Fe, W, Mn, Bi, Nb, Ta, Mo, alkaline-earths and rare earth elements and covering the outer surface of the core material. Moreover, as for the method for producing this, a raw material soln. contg. an Ni compd. to form into Ni particles and the soluble salt or colloid of the components to form into the surface layer of the oxide is prepd., this raw material soln. is atomized into droplets, thereafter, the droplets are carried into a reaction tube by a carrier gas and are moreover passed through a heating region in the reaction tube to produce the powder material.