Monte Carlo Simulation of Alkaline Earth Metal Oxides Protective Layers Bombarded With Ne+ or Xe+ in Plasma Display Panels

Abstract

One of the major components of commercial plasma display panel (PDP) cells is the magnesium oxide (MgO) protective layer. In order to obtain both lower discharge breakdown voltage and higher energy efficiency in the cells, other alkaline Earth metal oxides have been extensively studied as alternatives to MgO. Another important factor in the life-extending of PDP is resistance to ion sputtering. In this article, the Monte Carlo simulation program Stopping and Range of Ions in Matter (SRIM)-2013 was applied to study the behavior of the sputtering yield, vacancies/ions, backscattered ions, ion range, lateral and radial projection, energy loss due to ionization, vacancies, and phonons, of MgO, calcium oxide (CaO), SrO, and barium oxide (BaO) as a function of incident angle for Ne <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$^{+}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> and Xe <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$^{+}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> ion beam. It is discovered that CaO, SrO, and BaO protective layers increase the number of backscattered ions from surfaces when they are hit by noble gas ions. They resist sputtering and vacancies better than the MgO protective layer.