Patent ID: 7136034

Claim:
A method of driving a display panel to display a multi-gradation-level image based on an input image signal by driving the display panel for each of a plurality of subfields, the plurality of subfields defining one field of the input image signal, the display panel including a front substrate and a back substrate which face each other across a discharge space, a plurality of row electrode pairs arranged on an inner surface of the front substrate such that one row electrode pair extends adjacent to another row electrode pair, each row electrode having a first portion and a second portion, a plurality of column electrodes arranged on an inner surface of the back substrate such that the plurality of column electrodes extend perpendicularly to the plurality of row electrode pairs and define a plurality of crossing portions of the column electrodes and row electrode pairs, and a plurality of light emission elements formed at the plurality of crossing portions of the column electrodes and row electrode pairs, each of the plurality of light emission elements being defined by a first discharge cell and a second discharge cell, the first discharge cell having the first portion of one row electrode and the first portion of a mating row electrode in one row electrode pair such that these two first portions face each other across a first discharge gap in the discharge space, the second discharge cell having the second portion of one electrode in the row electrode pair belonging to the mating first discharge cell, and the second portion of one electrode belonging to an adjacent row electrode pair such that these two second portions face each other across a second discharge gap in the discharge space, the second discharge cell also having a light-absorbing layer formed on the front substrate side, wherein each subfield includes an address stage for applying a scanning pulse to one electrode in each of the row electrode pairs sequentially, and applying a pixel data pulse derived from the input image signal to the column electrodes at the same timing as the scanning pulse to selectively trigger address discharge within the second discharge cell of each light emission element so as to set the second discharge cell into either a light emission condition in which wall charge exists in the second discharge cell, or a light extinction condition in which the wall charge does not exist in the second discharge cell, and wherein leakage light leaking to the first discharge cell from the mating second discharge cell upon the address discharge is used to express a low-luminance gradation.