Patent Abstract:
A very large area plasma display for indoor and outdoor application ranging in size to several feet in diagonal, incorporating plurality of ‘tiles’ of plasma pixels comprising plasma sustain electrodes and dielectric barrier on one substrate and address electrode on other substrate, the substrates being kept in alignment to oppose each other and orient plasma sustain electrodes, with dielectric barrier, orthogonal to address electrodes. The presence of the dielectric barrier enhances the path length of Hg-inert gas plasma resulting in increased UV generation and hence increased visible light that enhances the luminous efficiency of the large area plasma display. Plurality of plasma pixels are fabricated in a single panel called ‘tile’ and hermetically sealed. The ‘tiles’ are assembled to generate a large area plasma display thus eliminating the need for expensive process equipments and tedious procedures to handle large area substrates.

Full Description:
CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION  
       [0000]    
       
          U.S. Pat. No. 6,452,326B1—Xiaoqin Ge et.al, Sep. 17, 2002  
          U.S. Pat. No. 6,396,983—Lowry et.al, May 28, 2002  
          U.S. Pat. No. 5,095,244—Maeda et.al, Mar. 10, 1992  
          U.S. Pat. No. 4,833,542—Hara et.al, May 23, 1989  
          United States Patent Appln. No. 20040130252—Xiaoqin Ge et.al, Jul. 8, 2004  
          U.S. Pat. No. 4,529,909—Kamega Ya et.al, Jul. 16, 1985  
          U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 60/513,430, Oct. 22, 2003 
       
     
     
    
     OTHER PUBLICATIONS  
       [0000]    
       
          1. Tsutae Shinoda, Manabu Ishimoto, Hitoshi Yamada, Akira Tokai and Kenji Awamoto—“New approach for wall display with fine plasma tube array technology”—SID 02 Digest of Technical papers, pp. 1072-1075, SID 2002 International Symposium vol. XXXIII, No. 2, May 2002.  
          2. H. Hirakawas, K. Shinohae, A. Tokai, H. Yamada, Y. Yamazaki, M. Ishimoto, K. Awamoto, T. Shinoda—“Dynamic driving characteristics of plasma tube array”—SID 04 Digest of Technical papers, pp. 810-813, SID 2004 International Symposium vol. XXXV, Book II, May 2004.  
          3. Large area color display “Skypix”—Yoshiyasu Sakagauchi et.al, SID&#39; 92 Digest of Technical papers, SID International Symposium, May 1991.  
       
     
       STATEMENT REGARDING FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH OR DEVELOPMENT  
       [0011]     Not Applicable  
       REFERENCE TO SEQUENCE LISTING, A TABLE, OR A COMPUTER PROGRAM LISTING COMPACT DISK APPENDIX  
       [0012]     Not Applicable  
       BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION  
       [0013]     1. Field of Invention  
         [0014]     The present invention relates to a very large area display for use in outdoor and stadium environment employing plasma display technology. More particularly, the present invention utilizes sub-blocks of tiles of plasma pixels that are specially designed to have high luminous efficiency.  
         [0015]     2. Description of Prior Art  
         [0016]     For large area, size of several feet in diagonal, display applications such as stadium display system, bill board display system and other outdoor and indoor display systems, several display technologies have been described. For example, Cathode Ray Tubes (CRTs), Fluorescent Lamps (FLs), Plasma Display Panels (PDPs) and fiber bundles carrying the light have been described in the prior art for these applications. These applications demand high performance of displays in terms of (i) brightness for readability under sunlight (ii) luminous efficiency (iii) planarity (iv) weight (v) ease of manufacturing (vi) Operation under temperature and humidity extremes.  
         [0017]     In one prior art (U.S. Pat. No. 4,529,909), Kamegaya et.al described a gas discharge display panel that employed discrete anodes and cathodes arranged between two substrates orthogonally. The cathodes were hollow cathodes. For a very large screen display of several feet in diagonal, it is extremely difficult to deal with substrates of several feet and carry out processes on them in manufacturing. In another prior art (U.S. Pat. No. 4,833,542), Hara et.al described a large area display using CRTs as light emitting elements. As is well known, CRTs are bulky and heavy for such applications. Lowry et.al (U.S. Pat. No. 6,396,985) used fiber-optic bundles to transmit images from one end of the fiber bundle to the other end that was spread and terminated in a surface forming a tile-like structure. Lowry et.al employed optical lenses and refractive micro-lenses to preserve the image with minimum distortion. The image is generated at the dense end of the fiber bundle. This invention was mainly on optical communication of images in a large screen and by itself did not create display images. This was a bulky system with two sections comprising image generation and image communication and hence was bulky and complex in optical assembly. In another prior art (U.S. Pat. No. 5,095,244) Maeda et.al used fluorescent display tube as the main display screen. The fluorescent display tube was vacuum based flat CRT that employed control grid and focus electrodes to control the electron beam that impinged on Red, Blue and Green phosphors. This type of flat CRT is not suitable for several feet diagonal display and is heavy and bulky. Another prior art (U.S. Pat. No. 6,452,326 and US Patent Application No. 20040130252) by Xiaoqin Ge et.al employed discrete cold cathode fluorescent lamps (CCFLs) as picture elements (pixels). The display screen consisted of CCFLs of red color, blue color and green color assembled close to each other to form a color pixel. The CCFLs with several bends were assembled inside a flat vessel to be contained in a pixel format. The fill factor of each color was different inside the pixel. The CCFLs were scanned by incoming data to generate images. The disadvantage with this technique is the bulkiness and discrete nature associated with the whole display screen. In a publication (Tsutae Shinoda, Manabu Ishimoto, Hitoshi Yamada, Akira Tokai and Kenji Awamoto—“New approach for wall display with fine plasma tube array technology”—SID 02 Digest of Technical papers, pp. 1072-1075, SID 2002 International Symposium vol. XXXIII, No. 2, May 2002), Tsutae et.al described a large stack of linear plasma tubes as light generating pixel elements for very large area out door and indoor stadium type application. Electrodes were placed external to the plasma tubes and plasma was confined through the positioning of electrodes. In this configuration plasma diffused out of the confined region and further discrete tubes were bulky.  
         [0018]     Another prior art (U.S. Pat. No. 5,668,443) by Kawaguchi et.al used discrete fluorescent lamps with coaxial geometry of electrodes. The tubes were assembled with ends-on with the light coming through a cylindrical tunnel. Most of the light loss occurred through multiple reflections as the light came from the inner surface of the coaxial cylinder to the end of the tube that formed the pixel. Several tubes were stacked end-on to form a pixel. This configuration was bulky and less efficient due to light loss. In a publication (Large area color display “Skypix”—Yoshiyasu Sakagauchi et.al, SID&#39; 92 Digest of Technical papers, SID International Symposium, May 1991), Yoshiyasu Sakaguchi et.al described another cylindrical fluorescent lamp with hot cathode. In this configuration with end-on side acting as pixel, lot of light loss occurs with system being bulky due to the depth of cylindrical fluorescent lamps.  
         [0019]     In all the foregoing arts, the thickness of the display was high and the display was bulky with discrete components. In some of them, the tiled concept was only at the final surface with increased thickness and bulkiness behind the tiles.  
       BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION  
       [0020]     According to the present invention, a large area plasma display incorporating planar plasma pixels with a novel design for increasing the luminous efficiency of the large area plasma display, coupled with ease of manufacturing of pixels sizes ranging from 6 mm×6 mm to 100 mm×100 mm and large area display sizes, comprising the large pixels sizes, ranging from 13′×10′ to 210′×160′ can be accomplished. The novel plasma pixels can be manufactured in large volume and individually assembled to derive a large area plasma display or multi-pixels can be volume manufactured in ‘tiles’ and ‘tiles’ can be assembled to generate very large area displays. Thus, the difficulty of handling large size substrates in manufacturing and huge investment in process machines to handle large area substrates can be eliminated. Luminance in the range of 1000 to 5000 nits can be obtained incorporating these pixels in the display and thus ‘sunlight readable’ displays for outdoor application can be realized.  
         [0021]     The current invention of the large area display, incorporating the plasma pixels, employs a hybrid technology that combines the plasma display technology and the fluorescent lamp technology but with a major new design to increase the luminous efficiency of the display. The pixel comprises two plasma sustain electrodes, herein after called sustain electrodes, buried in a dielectric layer, on one substrate and an address electrode, also buried in a dielectric layer, on another substrate with phosphor coating on the substrate containing the address electrode. Between the sustain discharge electrodes is disposed a ‘dielectric barrier’ that creates a long positive column of plasma that is responsible for increasing the efficiency of the light out put. The pixel is filled with mercury and Argon gas or mixtures of Ar and Krypton or Argon and Helium. When suitable amplitude of voltage with appropriate frequency is applied between sustain electrodes, the inert gas and mercury will pass an electric current as a result of electrical breakdown and creation of plasma, causing the mercury to give off ultraviolet rays (253.7 nm and 185 nm). The plasma length is elongated by the presence of ‘dielectric barrier’, thus increasing the yield of ultraviolet rays. The ultraviolet rays cause excitation of phosphor resulting in light output from the pixel. Each pixel is fabricated as a device of dimension of the order of an inch and sealed with a frit seal. Hence the manufacturing becomes easy with simple machineries. Large area plasma display is generated by assembling these pixels in rows and columns. Alternately a group of pixels can also be fabricated on single panel in a ‘tiled’ configuration and the ‘tiles’ can be assembled to generate a large area display. Addressing of the display is by using the same scheme as employed in AC plasma displays.  
         [0022]     It is an object of the present invention to provide a large area plasma display incorporating plasma pixel with a novel design. The novel pixel design enhances the luminous efficiency and readily manufacturable together with the large area plasma display derived from these pixels.  
         [0023]     A further object of this invention is to provide a ‘dielectric barrier’ to the sustain discharge between sustain electrodes to augment the luminous efficiency of plasma pixels.  
         [0024]     Yet another object of this invention is to incorporate dielectric reflective layer under the phosphor layer within a pixel to reduce visible and UV light losses.  
         [0025]     Another object of this invention is to provide group of pixels in a single sealed panel called, ‘tile’ and assemble plurality of ‘tiles’ to fabricate large area plasma display for indoor and outdoor display system.  
         [0026]     A further object of this invention is to eliminate the huge investment costs on process equipment required for handling large area substrates, using conventional method to manufacture large area plasma displays.  
     
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS  
       [0027]      FIG. 1  is the plan view of a large area display of a prior art incorporating in every pixel three cold cathode discrete fluorescent lamps of red, blue and green color;  
         [0028]      FIG. 2  is an isometric view of a coaxial cylindrical fluorescent lamp, according to a prior art, that forms part of the fraction of a pixel of a large area display;  
         [0029]      FIG. 3  is the plan view of a large area display employing plurality of end-on position of fluorescent lamp as depicted in  FIG. 2 ;  
         [0030]      FIG. 4  is an exploded view of a medium sized (60″ diagonal) plasma display of prior art showing the pixels processed on two substrates;  
         [0031]      FIG. 5  is the side-view of discrete cylindrical plasma tube with plasma sustain-electrodes and address electrode defining a pixel on the tube;  
         [0032]      FIG. 6  is the front view of a large area plasma display containing plurality of plasma tubes depicted in  FIG. 5 ;  
         [0033]      FIG. 7  is the isometric view of one of the substrates of a pixel, containing two sustain electrodes, according to a prior art, covered by a dielectric layer;  
         [0034]      FIG. 8  is the isometric view of plasma path between two sustain electrodes shown in  FIG. 7 ;  
         [0035]      FIG. 9  is the isometric view of one of the substrates of a pixel, according to the present invention, where there is a dielectric barrier between the sustain electrodes;  
         [0036]      FIG. 10  is the isometric view of one of the substrates of a pixel, with an alternate split structure of sustain electrodes;  
         [0037]      FIG. 11  is the isometric view of one of the substrates of a pixel with an alternate dielectric barrier, between two sustain electrodes, integral to the substrate;  
         [0038]      FIG. 12  is the isometric view of plasma path between two sustain electrodes contained on the substrate depicted in  FIG. 9 ;  
         [0039]      FIG. 13  is the isometric view of one of the substrates of a pixel, according to the present invention, containing address electrode covered by a dielectric layer followed by a dielectric reflective layer followed by a phosphor layer and finally a peripheral seal layer;  
         [0040]      FIG. 14  is the exploded view of two substrates forming a pixel, according to the present invention, depicting the sustain electrodes with a dielectric barrier on one substrate and address electrode on the other substrate;  
         [0041]      FIG. 15  is the cross sectional view of a sealed pixel, comprising the two substrates depicted in  FIG. 14 , with a mercury dispensing arrangement;  
         [0042]      FIG. 16  is the cross sectional view of a processed pixel cell, according to the present invention, showing various parts of the pixel, including the path of plasma;  
         [0043]      FIG. 17  is the isometric view of one of the substrates of a pixel with alternate design, according to the present invention, of sustain electrodes and dielectric barrier between two sustain electrodes;  
         [0044]      FIG. 18  is the isometric view of one of the sustain electrodes depicted in  FIG. 17 , according to the present invention;  
         [0045]      FIG. 19  is the isometric view of one of the substrates of a pixel with another alternate design of dielectric barrier between two sustain electrodes;  
         [0046]      FIG. 20  is the cross sectional view of plurality of pixels sealed between two substrates, according to the present invention, with mercury dispensing arrangement;  
         [0047]      FIG. 21  is the plan view of plurality of pixels sealed between two substrates, according to the present invention;  
         [0048]      FIG. 22  is the isometric view of the assembly of single pixel, according to the present invention, with lead out for electrical connection;  
         [0049]      FIG. 23  is the isometric view of the assembly of discrete pixels, fabricated according to the present invention, on a frame body to form a large area plasma display;  
         [0050]      FIG. 24  is the isometric view of an assembly frame showing the relief holes for connecting leads on the discrete pixel assembly;  
         [0051]      FIG. 25  is the isometric view of the assembly of two frames depicted in  FIG. 23  and  FIG. 24  with top electrical connections of discrete pixel assembly;  
         [0052]      FIG. 26  is the exploded view of the final assembly of the sub-assembly as depicted in  FIG. 25  with a protective cover assembly; and  
         [0053]      FIG. 27  is the isometric upside-down view of assembly of plurality of ‘tiles’ containing plurality of pixels processed in each ‘tile’, according to the present invention, with top tip-off tabulation.  
     
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION  
       [0054]      FIG. 1  shows the plan view of a large area display  01  incorporating discrete cold cathode fluorescent lamps, according to a prior art (U.S. Pat. No. 6,452,326), of red  1 , blue  2  and green  3  color, assembled in one pixel in the format of matrix  4  with 3×3 pixels, as an illustration. In a large area display the pixels can be as many as 640×480. The cold cathode fluorescent lamps are U-type for accommodating inside the pixel. The construction is bulky and the pixel luminance will not be uniform for three colors because the three color lamps have different fill factors.  
         [0055]      FIG. 2  shows a discrete cylindrical fluorescent lamp  02 , according to a prior art (U.S. Pat. No. 5,668,443) with its external outer electrode  22  and inner electrode  21  operated through an alternating voltage source  28 . The outer electrode  22  has an insulation layer  23  followed by a phosphor layer  24 . A similar insulation layer and phosphor layer (not shown in  FIG. 2 ) are formed on the coaxial inner electrode  25 . The plasma formed in the coaxial region produces UV that excites the phosphor layer. The resulting visible light  26  escapes through an optical lens  27 .  
         [0056]      FIG. 3  is the plan view of a large area display  03  formed by the plurality of discrete lamps shown in 2×2 matrix  34 , as an illustration. In a large area display the number of pixels can be as many as 640×480. Every pixel in the illustration has nine of the lamps  31  and they are connected in parallel with outer electrodes  32  bussed together and inner electrodes  33  bussed together. The display derived from the use of discrete lamps as shown in  FIG. 2  is bulky and the depth of the display is increased due to the height of the discrete lamp. The lamp itself is inefficient due to the light loss as a result of multiple reflections inside the coaxial geometry.  
         [0057]      FIG. 4  illustrates another prior art in which a large area display  04  is built on two large substrates through integral processing. The bottom substrate  41  contains plurality of address electrodes  44  buried under a dielectric layer  43  followed by phosphor layer  46  between the ribs  45  that isolate pixels from ‘cross talk’. The top substrate  42  contains sets of sustain electrodes  49  buried in a dielectric layer  48  followed by an electron secondary emission enhancement layer  47 . In a regular display there is a momentary gas discharge established between address electrode  44  and one of the sustain electrodes  49  and the gas discharge is sustained by sustain electrodes  49 . The UV from the discharge excites the phosphor and the resulting visible light output enables the display. This art suffers from the fact that large area displays, ranging to several tens of feet in diagonal, are difficult to make because of handling of very large substrate sizes and the expensive special purpose machinery needed to handle these substrate sizes.  
         [0058]      FIG. 5  illustrates a plasma tube  05 , the basic light emitting element, of a large area plasma display (Tsutae Shinoda et.al, SID&#39; 02 Digest of Technical papers) that has plurality of sustain electrodes  53  vertical to the tube axis along its length, outside the tube, and an address electrode  52 , outside the tube, parallel to the axis of the tube. Plasma  55  is formed between sustain electrodes  53  when suitable voltage is applied between the sustain electrodes. As could be seen, the plasma diffuses  54  laterally along the axis of the tube thus not confining to the region between the sustain electrodes and resulting in cross-talk and low resolution. This is the drawback in this art.  
         [0059]      FIG. 6  shows a large area plasma display  06  incorporating plurality of plasma tube depicted in  FIG. 5 . The sustain electrodes  62  define the pixels along the plurality of plasma tube  61  and address electrodes  63  selects the pixels as per the incoming data to the display. The main disadvantage of this art is the diffusion of plasma from the pixel region thus not defining the pixel and leading to ‘cross talk’ problems.  
         [0060]      FIG. 7  illustrates the substrate  07  containing sustain electrodes  72  of a conventional plasma display (refer  FIG. 4 ) on a glass plate  71 , buried under a dielectric layer  73  and separated by a liner gap of ‘d’. On top of the dielectric layer is coated a layer  74  of MgO to enhance electron secondary emission.  
         [0061]      FIG. 8  shows the substrate  08  depicting the curved path of plasma  82  between the sustain electrodes  81  when sufficient voltage is applied between the sustain electrodes to create a gas discharge.  
         [0062]      FIG. 9  shows the substrate  09 , according to the present invention, that contains a dielectric barrier  93  on a glass plate  91 , in addition to the sustain electrodes  92 . The sustain electrodes and dielectric barrier are coated with a thin layer of dielectric  94  followed by an electron secondary emission enhancement layer  95 . The sustain electrodes  92  are made from Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) through a sputtering process or thermal CVD process to obtain a thickness in the range of 50 nm to 150 nm and the resistivity in the range of 10Ω/ to 100Ω/ to have high optical transmission of &gt;85%. A resist lift-off process can be used to pattern the ITO layer to the desired dimension, if the ITO is deposited by sputtering. If the ITO is deposited by thermal CVD, a photo-lithographic etch process can be employed. For contacting to the drive electronics, the sustain electrodes  92  are terminated by screen-printed silver conductor (not shown in  FIG. 9 ), employing ‘Dupont&#39;s’ 7713 silver conductor and thermally firing the print. An alternate material is ‘Dupont&#39;s’ Fodel DC201 which can be employed for photo-lithographically forming the termination. The thickness of the Ag layer can be in the range of 12 microns to 25 microns. The dielectric barrier  93  can be a rectangular or circular glass rod of thickness/diameter of approximately in the range of 2 mm to 5 mm that can be sealed to the glass plate  91  through a dielectric layer. The dielectric layer  94  can be obtained by screen printing ‘Dupont&#39;s’ DG211 Fodel dielectric paste or ‘Cermalloy 9000’ glass mixed ceramic dielectric paste or dielectric material from ‘Hanwook’ or dielectric material from ‘Sunchon’ and thermally firing the print to a temperature of 550 C. The thickness of this layer is in the range of 10-25 microns. The MgO layer  95  can be obtained by e-beam deposition of MgO in vacuum to a thickness of approximately 10,000 A or the MgO can also be deposited through reactive sputter deposition using Ar and Oxygen during sputtering.  
         [0063]      FIG. 10  presents substrate  010  with an alternate sustain electrodes  103  with split structure formed on glass plate  101  on either side of a dielectric barrier  102 . Both the sustain electrodes and dielectric barrier are coated with a thin layer  104  consisting of a thin dielectric layer followed by a secondary electron emissive layer. The split sustain electrode arrangement will give the advantage of well spread out uniform plasma.  
         [0064]      FIG. 11  presents an alternate substrate  011  with a corrugation  112 , according to the present invention, that is integral to the glass plate  111 . The corrugation creates a ‘bump’ for the discharge path between sustain electrodes  113  which are coated with a dielectric layer  115  followed by electron secondary emission enhancement layer  116 .  
         [0065]      FIG. 12  shows the substrate  012  with a plasma path  124  created as a result of application of suitable momentary plasma initiation voltage between address electrode and one of the plasma sustain electrodes and then maintaining an alternating voltage between the sustain electrodes  122  which are covered by a layer  123  consisting of a dielectric layer and an electron secondary emission enhancement layer. The presence of dielectric barrier  125 , laid on glass plate  121 , makes the plasma path more curved upwards compare to the plasma path in  FIG. 8 . The increase in the path length of plasma increases the luminous efficiency of the plasma pixel and consequently the luminous efficiency of large area plasma display that comprises the plurality of these plasma pixels.  
         [0066]      FIG. 13  presents various processed parts of substrate  013 , according to the present invention, that contains starting from the glass plate  131 , an address electrode  132  followed by multi-layer  133  comprising a thin dielectric layer  137  followed by a dielectric reflective layer  136  followed by a final phosphor layer  135 . There is an evacuation and gas filling-hole  138  and the substrate is finally applied with a peripheral sealing frit layer  134 . The address electrode  132  can be made by screen printing ‘Dupont&#39;s’ silver paste 7713 or ‘Dupont&#39;s’ Fodel DC201 and firing to a temperature of 550 C. An alternate material is a thin film stack of Cr—Cu—Cr or Cr—Al—Cr through vacuum deposition. If formed by screen printing the thickness of silver electrode is in the range of 12 micron to 25 micron and if formed by thin film deposition the thickness of the electrode is in the range of 1000 nm to 2000 nm and the width being in the range of several mm. A thin dielectric layer  137  is printed over the address electrode and processed in the manner described before for the dielectric layer on sustain electrodes. The reflective dielectric layer  136  can be obtained through the process of screen printing Aluminum Oxide paste or spraying the suspension containing Aluminum Oxide and firing to a temperature of 550 C. An alternate method is by printing a low melting glass paste mixed with Titanium dioxide or Aluminum Oxide or SrTiO3 or ZrO2 and firing to a temperature of 550 C. Still another alternative method is to screen print the reflective Titanium Dioxide or Aluminum Oxide or SrTiO3 or ZrO2 mixed glass paste as a single layer to replace layer  136  and  137  and firing to a temperature of 550 C to obtain a thickness in the range of 25 to 40 microns. The final phosphor layer is obtained by employing phosphor pastes of desired color and screen printing and firing to a temperature of 500 C to result in a thickness range of 12-18 microns. The phosphor material is Zn2 SiO4:Mn for green, BaMgAl10 O17:Eu for blue and Y2 O3:Eu for red. To derive green, blue and red pixels these phosphor materials can be used. Alternate materials for green are YBO3:Tb and BaAl12 O19:Mn and for red (Y, Gd)BO3:EU and YBO3:Eu. An alternate method for phosphor deposition is by spraying a suspension of phosphor. The peripheral seal layer can be deposited employing a rectangular glass frame, coating the frame with low melting glass frit paste and placing the coated frame on the glass plate  131  and pre-glazing to a temperature of 450 C.  
         [0067]      FIG. 14  depicts the assembly  014  of bottom substrate  141  with top substrate  148  for alignment prior to sealing the two substrates. The sustain electrodes  146  are orthogonal to the address electrode  142 . Within the seal frame  144  are the phosphor layer  143  with its backing layers of dielectric and reflective dielectric layer (not shown in  FIG. 14 ). The key dielectric barrier  147  with the transparent dielectric over-layer  145 , including the electron secondary emission enhancement layer (not shown in  FIG. 14 ) are contained on the top substrate  148 .  
         [0068]      FIG. 15  shows the cross section  015  of a single pixel in sealed configuration with a mercury reservoir  153  appended to the bottom of the single pixel panel. The top substrate  151  is sealed to the bottom substrate  157  through the frit seal  152 . The frit seal is made employing a low melting glass frit and sealing it around 500 C. The mercury reservoir  153  with its mercury dispensing getter  154  can be obtained form ‘Saes’ getters corporation, containing Zirconium and mercury. The mercury reservoir is attached by flame sealing, after frit sealing the single pixel panel. The whole panel is evacuated through the exhaust tabulation  156  (not closed at this time, but shown as closed in  FIG. 15  at the end of evacuation cycle) and baked to a temperature of 350 C and filled with inert gas mixture containing 90% Ar and 10% He. Alternate gas mixtures are 90% Ne/10% He or 50% Ne and 50% Ar. The pressure of the gas filling is in the range of 3 torr to 100 torr. After gas filling the exhaust tabulation is tipped off and closed as shown in  FIG. 15 . The mercury dispensing getter  154  is induction heated, through a high frequency coil coupled to a high frequency generator without heating the getter support  155 , to a temperature of 900 C to release free mercury and activate the Zirconium getter. After this stage, the panel assembly  015  is placed in a slotted oven to immerse only the mercury reservoir portion of the panel inside the oven slot and the temperature of the reservoir is raised to 300 C for driving the mercury droplets formed during the induction heating process to the space between the substrates  151  and  157 . At the end of this process, the mercury reservoir is detached from the panel.  
         [0069]      FIG. 16  is the cross section of the single pixel panel  016  after vacuum processing, gas filling and mercury filling. For the sake of simplicity several layers are omitted in this  FIG. 16 . For example, above the address electrode  161 , the dielectric layer, dielectric reflective layer and phosphor layer are combined and shown as a single layer  162 . Similarly, over the sustain electrodes  164  and the dielectric barrier  165 , thin film dielectric layer and MgO layer are combined and shown as a single layer  166 . The bottom substrate  160  and top substrate  163  are sealed through a frit seal  168  and the exhaust tabulation  169  is tipped off. The path of Ar—Hg plasma  167  is formed when a sufficient magnitude of voltage is applied between the sustain electrodes  164 . As can be seen the path of plasma is sufficiently curved downwards due to the presence of dielectric barrier and the substantial UV generated due to increased path length of plasma excites the phosphor that results in visible light escaping the panel upwards.  
         [0070]      FIG. 17  illustrates an alternate design  017  for the sustain electrodes and dielectric barrier. The substrate  171  through which the visible light escapes contains rectangular hollow electrodes  172  as sustain electrodes and the dielectric barrier  174  is fixed to the substrate  171  through a glass frit  173 .  
         [0071]      FIG. 18  shows the details of the hollow electrodes that are used as sustain electrodes. The rectangular hollow electrode  183  has two portions of external surface. One surface  181  below which is situated the hollow geometry and another surface  182  which is pinched to be flat for compatibility for peripheral seal of the single pixel panel. The material of the electrodes can be an alloy of Nickel-Iron alloy called ‘Alloy 42’ (52% Ni and balance Fe with traces of Cr, carbon etc,) or ‘Alloy 52’, (52% Ni and balance Fe with traces of Cr, carbon etc.,) that are good for frit-sealing to the soft glasses. External surface of the hollow electrode  181  and  182  is applied with a coating of vitreous glass frit by spraying and thermally pre-glazing to a temperature of 400 C to form a continuous layer of frit glass. The horizontal axis of the hollow structure is tilted to make a small angle with the plane of the plate ( 172  of  FIG. 17 ). This angle can range between 10 degrees to 45 degrees. The inside of the hollow electrode can also be coated with a low work function material such as Barium oxide, or cerium oxide or lithium fluoride or mixtures of Ba, Sr and Ca oxides in the ratio of 50:40:10.  
         [0072]      FIG. 19  illustrates an alternate design  019  of the dielectric barrier with plurality of dielectric rods  193  sealed in the glass plate  191  through glass frit layer  194  between hollow sustain electrodes  192 . This type of barrier will further increase the path length of plasma resulting in enhanced luminous efficiency of large area display. An alternate design for the dielectric barrier can be the ‘corrugated bump’ structure shown in  FIG. 10 .  
         [0073]      FIG. 20  depicts plurality of plasma pixels  020  formed between two substrates  201  and  202  with the frit seal  203  separating them to prevent cross-talk but still connecting them for the purpose of evacuation and gas filling (better seen in  FIG. 21 ). The mercury reservoir  204  with its mercury dispensing getter  205  with its support  207  and the evacuation tube  206  play the same role as in  FIG. 15 . In this configuration, the multiple plasma pixels between two substrates act like tiles for the large area display but the panel is still small enough for simplicity in handling.  
         [0074]      FIG. 21  is the plan view  021  of  FIG. 20  with the mercury reservoir detached. The glass frit seal  211  is all the way around for the entire panel except for the individual pixels. For the individual pixels the glass frit seal  212  is not closed but with an opening  213  in the form of a barrier. This opening links all the pixels during evacuation and gas filling through a common hole  214 . The restricted opening  213  prevents cross-talk between pixels.  
         [0075]      FIG. 22  illustrates the assembly  022  of a single pixel plasma panel prior to its main frame assembly. The sustain electrode terminations  223  on the larger glass plate  220  are conducted to the external surface of the smaller glass plate  221  through a conductive silver epoxy  225  that contains pins  226  herein after called sustain electrode pins. The address electrode termination (not shown in  FIG. 22 ) is similarly brought to the address electrode pin  228 . The sealed off evacuation hole is protected by a plastic cover  224  is seen on the external surface of glass plate  221 . The side through which the light escapes is the bottom side of glass plate  220 .  
         [0076]      FIG. 23  shows a rigid plastic frame assembly  023  that contains a recessed frame  231  and the plurality of basic pixel panel assembly illustrated in  FIG. 22 . The basic pixel panel assembly  232  is assembled in the recessed frame  231  in R-G-G-B (Red-Green-Green-Blue) format for building a large area color display of several feet in diagonal.  
         [0077]      FIG. 24  shows a recessed rigid plastic back frame  024  that contains holes  241  and  242  for the insertion of sustain electrode pins and  244  for the insertion of address electrode pins. The exhaust tube&#39;s tip-off protection cover is relieved by the holes  245 . The front frame shown in  FIG. 23  is assembled in to this back frame  240  and clamped firmly.  
         [0078]      FIG. 25  shows the back view of the assembly  025  after the frame  250 , containing the basic pixel panels, is assembled in frame  251  comprising the corresponding holes to relieve the sustained electrode pins  252 ,  253  and address electrode pins  254 . In  FIG. 25 , the pixels are facing down. Appropriately dimensioned mechanical slots for alignment, adjustment and rigid assembly are not shown in  FIG. 25 .  
         [0079]      FIG. 26  illustrates the final assembly  026  of the subassembly shown in  FIG. 25 . The subassembly unit  260 , containing the basic pixel panels in R-G-G-B format  262 , is assembled in a front frame  261 , containing windows to accommodate the basic pixel panels  262 . Mechanical enclosures for operation under extreme temperature environment are not shown in  FIG. 26 .  
         [0080]      FIG. 27  presents the assembly  027  of plurality of ‘tiles’  271 ,  272 ,  273  and  274  comprising plurality of basic pixel panels with the common exhaust hole tube protection cover  275  protruding at the back side of ‘tiles’. This illustration is for 2×2 matrix of ‘tiles’. Multiple of these matrices need to be assembled to derive a large area display.  
         [0081]     It will be understood that one skilled in the art could modify the above basic design dimensions, geometries, sequence of assemblies. Various modification and variations can be made in the construction, configuration and/or operation of the present invention without departing from the scope or spirit of the invention. By way of example, the dielectric barrier described in the present invention can be modified in geometry from cylindrical to oval or semi-circular or any combination and plurality of these shapes and sizes. The profile of ‘corrugated bump’ in the substrate to make the dielectric barrier integral to the substrate can be changed and number of ‘bumps’ can be changed. Further, the hollow electrode described in the present invention has one electrode on each side. This can be split in to several on each side operating in parallel. Another example is the change in spacing between the front substrate and back substrate of the basic pixel panel that can influence the path of plasma and hence the efficiency of the display. Still another example is extending the phosphor coating area to the inside surface of the side wall of frit seal. Thus it is intended that the present invention covers the modifications and variations of the invention provided they come within the scope of the appended claims and their equivalents.

Technology Classification (CPC): 7