Demonstration of large scale polymeric microplasma devices with elongated lifetime for flexible display and photonic applications

Summary form only given. Since it was introduced in 2007 at Illinois, replica molding technique has been applied to fabricate microplasma devices on polymer substrates. Using the replica molding process, lightweight, transparent, and flexible microplasma device was fabricated for various potential applications such as flexible displays, light sources, and medical phototreatment tools. Although several flexible displays using microplasmas or other technologies have been reported, the reliability of device performance in several thin film technologies, requires further improvement because of mechanical fatigue and device contamination due to outgassing or permeation out of the flexible device components. This work describes the fabrication of microplasma devices and arrays by a replica molding process in which the substrate is a flexible and transparent plastic film. In particular, in this research, ultra-thin flexible glass substrates were embedded into the device so as to minimize outgassing of undesirable gas species and reinforce flexible substrates from the fatigue. Several large scale devices and arrays have been demonstrated to date and extended discharge lifetime of the device has been observed. Their electrical performance and optical characteristics as a function of long term operation will be discussed.