What the Screen Contains

The plasma screen looks good from nearly every angle because it contains hundreds of thousands of tiny cells. These cells are made up from xenon and neon gas. These cells which contain gas are then positioned between two plates of glass.

To produce the light needed to power these cells, electrodes are put between the two glass plates, and on each side of the cells. Then there are address and transparent electrodes surrounded by insulating material. It gets even more complicated with then a covering of protective magnesium oxide.

Three separate subpixel cells make up a pixel on screen. These subpixels will have a red, green and blue light phosphor in it. A pixel is the smallest part of a picture which can be controlled individually.

- Plasma pixel is made up like.

How it Works (rough guide)

A plasma screen produces a picture by,

• To start producing the light needed for the picture a control circuitry produces a charge in the electrodes that cross paths at a cell.
• This manages to cause the plasma to ionize.
• After this they then emit photons between the electrodes.
• The computer that controls all of this manages to process the cells thousands of times in a second. And continues to do this with every cell, all the hundreds of thousands.
• As the current flows and stimulates the gas atoms the photons are released.
• Then the phosphors display a colored light.
• The colors blend together to create an overall colour of the pixels.
• As the pulses and current varies so will the overall colours on screen.
• Of course the control system decides whether to increase or decrease this flow.