Dynamics of a coplanar-electrode plasma display panel cell. I. Basic operation

Plasma display panels (PDPs) are a technology for large-area high-brightnes s flat panel displays. There is considerable interest in improving PDP effi ciency by optimizing the cell design, input voltage characteristics, operat ing conditions and gas mixture. In this article, we report on a two-dimensi onal computer model for PDPs which has been used to investigate the operati on of a coplanar-electrode PDP cell sustained in He/Ne/Xe gas mixtures. The plasma transport equations are implicitly integrated in time to enable sim ulation of complex gas mixtures and PDP cell designs. To resolve the detail s of the electron dynamics, the electron temperature is computed by solving the electron energy equation. A Monte Carlo simulation for secondary elect rons and a radiation transport model for visible light emission are also em ployed. The basic operation of the PDP cell is described in this article. T he first pulse was usually found to initiate a discharge between the top el ectrodes and the bottom address electrode, which was grounded. Only after a positive surface charge was formed on the bottom dielectric did the discha rge shift to being between the coplanar electrodes. For our conditions, rad iation from Xe-2* made a larger contribution to exciting the phosphor for v isible light emission than radiation from the resonance states of Xe since radiation from Xe-2* is optically thin. (C) 1999 American Institute of Phys ics. [S0021-8979(99)07107-8].