The effects of electrode structures on the luminous efficacy of micro dielectric barrier discharges

A high efficacy alternating current plasma display panel (PDP) utilizing vertically raised multilayer bus electrodes (MBE) is simulated by using a three-dimensional fluid code for the investigation of the effects of cell structures on the discharge characteristics of a PDP cell. The raised bus electrodes provide an opposite discharge mode with a low discharge current in a relatively long gap, and thus provide higher luminance and lower current simultaneously. The luminous efficacy of an MBE-PDP with a gap distance of 350 m was found to be twice higher than that of a conventional coplanar PDP structure having an electrode gap of 60 m. The fluid simulation coupled with visible ray-trace calculation shows the light-emission patterns that vary with the electrode structures, which explain the mechanism of the improvement of the luminous efficacy. Emission spectra and spatio-temporal distributions of infra-red radiation in a PDP cell discharge were measured experimentally and are compared with simulation results.