The effect of self-erase discharge on the luminous efficacy of alternating current plasma display panels

In this work, we studied the effect of self-erase discharge on the luminous efficacy of alternating current plasma display panels. Through discharge current analysis, we observed that self-erase discharge occurred mainly between the sustain cathode and the address electrode, which has an influence on the luminous efficacy. We varied the amount and timing of the self-erase discharge in order to observe the effects on the luminous efficacy. We found that the luminous efficacy could be improved by a self-erase discharge when adjusted to occur right before the main discharge in the small gap structure. In the long gap structure, on the contrary, we could increase the luminous efficacy when we suppressed the self-erase discharge. In addition, we suggest various waveforms to control self-erase discharge as a result of our panel experiments.