Effect of Base Vacuum Level on Plasma Display Panel Discharge Characteristics and Efficacy

This paper focuses on the effects of the base vacuum level on the electrical and optical characteristics of plasma display panels (PDPs). It is demonstrated that impurity gases, which remain inside the PDP panel during the pumping cycle of a sealing process, consists of H 2 O, CO 2 , CO or N 2 , and O 2 , and the amount of impurity gases decreased rapidly as the base vacuum level increased, particularly near 10 -5 Torr. After the pumping process, a discharge gas of Ne–Xe (4%) was introduced inside the panel, and the relationship between efficiency and base vacuum level was analyzed. For the base vacuum level of 1 × 10 -4 Torr, firing voltage was 232 V at the discharge gas pressure of 400 Torr and luminous efficiency was 1.5 lm/W at a 180 V sustaining pulse. In contrast, for 1 × 10 -6 Torr, the firing voltage was reduced to 215 V and luminous efficiency was improved considerably to 2.5 lm/W. Finally, we successfully fabricated an operational tip-less PDP by the vacuum in-line sealing method.