Manipulation of Front Dielectric Structure for a High Efficiency Plasma Display Panel

Summary form only given. Alternating current plasma display panels (AC PDPs) are one of the most promising technologies for large-area flat panel displays. Many research and development activities have been carried out to improve display performances of AC PDPs such as luminance and luminous efficiency, resolution, lifetime and contrast ratio. However, their low efficiency is still an important drawback of PDPs. For high efficiency PDPs, many studies have been done to optimize geometrical parameters of a PDP cell, which is one of the main factors that determine luminous efficiency. Focusing our attention on the front dielectric layer, we have performed two-dimensional simulations of a coplanar structured AC-PDP cell. An AC PDP structure with a grooved front dielectric layer, which has a thinner front dielectric layer near the gap between two sustain electrodes than the other part of the front dielectric, has already been studied. Here, we have extended our manipulation of front dielectric to make multi-layered structures, in search of a high efficiency PDP with low operating voltage. In a two-layered front dielectric structure, we have found that the order of stacked dielectric layers with different dielectric constants influences discharge characteristics. According to our simulation results, the component dielectric layer with higher dielectric constant should be next to sustain electrodes to get higher efficiency and lower breakdown voltage. These results are very promising because we can not only reduce the breakdown voltage but also enhance the luminous efficiency of PDPs, by using an appropriate multi-layered front dielectric structure. In addition, these multi-layered dielectric structures can give more freedom to choose dielectric materials for the front dielectric layer of PDPs, considering the contact between the front dielectric layer and the sustain electrodes and the interaction between them.