Guest Editorial Special Issue on Plasma Display Panels

Abstract

LASMA display panels (PDPs) now represent an increasingly important and relatively mature industrial application of plasmas. The basic principles of plasma display panel were invented in the 1960s, and, as described by Weber in his paper “History of the Plasma Display Panel” in this Special Issue, “the technology struggled for decades and faced many challenging problems” before it became a viable alternative to cathode ray tubes (CRTs) for television and other display applications. In the last few years, PDP televisions have been successfully introduced into the consumer market and the outlook for PDPs, based on sales in 2005, has never been brighter. In the meantime, the liquid–crystal display (LCD) technology has also advanced rapidly and LCD displays with diagonals larger than 40 in, a size range that was once supposed to be the exclusive domain of PDPs, are on the market now. Other display technologies are on the horizon, and the importance of the consumer television market is such that the companies seem to be prepared for a “TV technology war.” Although PDP technology is relatively mature, basic research is still an essential element for the future of this technology because of strong competition from other display technologies, notably LCD. The purpose of this Special Issue is to provide a perspective on the research activities and the technological challenges, from the invention and the definition of the basic principles of PDPs in the 1960s, to the characterization of microplasma in PDP pixels and the optimization and improvement of the large PDPs that we already see in the marketplace today.