Technology Behind Plasma Displays

digg writes "CoolTechZone.com has an in-depth article that gives an overview of how Plasma Displays work. From the article: 'So, what exactly is plasma? Plasma by definition is one of the four states of matter (apart from solid, liquid and gas) and consists of positively and negatively charged particles, which are added in roughly the same quantity.' This obviously makes the gas more or less inert but ensures that the charged particles are free to conduct electricity. Plasma can be produced if a gas is energized enough to split the molecules into positive and negatively charged ions. Mostly, the plasma displays use a mixture of noble gases like Neon and Xenon."

Comments

Obligitory Wikipedia Link

[Xandu]

Of course, you can get all this (and more) at Wikipedia's Plasma Display page.

[I realize this is probably karma whoring, but I hate it when there's only one link in summary and it doesn't even have much info, and is littered with ads, and you have to look at 3 pages to get the whole article. That and run on sentences.] ;-)

There's more than four phases of matter

[BlueStraggler]

Make that "one of at over a dozen known phases of matter" , not "one of the four phases".

"In-depth article"? No. It's an ad troll.

[Animats]

That's not an "article". It's just a troll to drive traffic to the site.

'So, what exactly is plasma? Plasma by definition is one of the four states of matter (apart from solid, liquid and gas) and consists of positively and negatively charged particles, which are added in roughly the same quantity.' This obviously makes the gas more or less inert but ensures that the charged particles are free to conduct electricity.

"Makes the gas more inert?" Those guys should stick to writing about case mods.

Plasma panels have actually been around since the 1960s, as neon-red displays. The early concept was that a sustaining voltage applied to all pixels kept them lit if they were on, and an X/Y array of wires could be used to turn individual pixels on and off. Thus, the display itself had memory, back when having enough memory to refresh the display was expensive.

Color, intensity variation, and speed took a long time to achieve. Now there are transistor drivers behind every pixel, and the panel is built in what's effectively a big wafer fab. But that's not the toughest part of the manufacturing problem. All the electronics is on the back glass, while the phosphors are on the front. These two big pieces of glass have to be welded together with subpixel precision, held in contact only by millions of tiny ridges that have to match up. That's the most difficult step, and the one that limits display size.

Re:Amateurish

[deglr6328]

Yeah seriously, its horrible. I mean honestly:

"Each time a different colored cell is charged, this charges the atoms and converts them to ions and facilitates the release of UV photons due to the ionic collision. The inside wall of the cell is meted with a special treatment of a phosphor coating. This is done to exploit the phosphors property of giving out light when it comes in contact with other light."

Ughh, barf, don't even bother to RTFA, not worth it. This is a FAR more fascinating and in depth view into the workings and history of plasma displays.

DLP still better for me

[ruiner13]

I have a 50" Samsung 3rd Gen DLP TV ($1600 at Best Buy a few months ago, 0% APR for 2 years). I could not be happier with it. Not only does it have more HD ports than any TV I found in its price range (VGA, DVI, HDMI, 2 x Component), the color and contrast ratio are outstanding (1500:1 claimed) using a 7-segment color wheel (and no, I do not see the rainbow effect, I believe partly die to the higher rotation rate of the 7 segment wheel). Not only that, but it does not suffer from burn-in or fading the way plasma does (important for me for gaming). The only part that needs periodic replacing is the lamp unit itself, which you can find online for around $200, and according to other people with similar sets to mine, each lamp lasts 2-3 years, depending on use. The power savings of DLP over plasma or CRT more than makes up for it, I believe the set I have uses 60-70 W during normal use. In the long run, I don't see plasma sticking around. I see technologies like DLP and LCoS (or D-ILA as JVC calls their version) being the market leaders in 5 years. Plasma always looks over-saturated and grainy to me, not to mention the heat that comes off those things. They might be a little brighter than most DLPs, but I do not believe they are worth it. The only plus side is their depth, 4" versus 14" or so for my DLP.