The non-locality of striation phenomenon in plasma display panel

Summary form only given. A macroscopic plasma display panel cell is employed to study the striation phenomenon occurring in the discharge of a much smaller commercial AC-plasma display panel (PDPs) cell. The macro-cell is designed based on the scaling law with a scaling factor of 50. The honeycomb shaped macro-cell has symmetric coplanar T-shaped electrodes and a data electrode asymmetrically placed with an offset in direction perpendicular to the cathode-to-anode direction, i.e., the data electrode is not placed on the central line of the cell. Measurement of images by an intensified charged coupled device (ICCD) camera shows that the asymmetric electric field profile due to asymmetric electrode configuration causes the development of striations along different directions on the anode. A number of striation domains (with different orientations) appear and can be distinguished clearly by boundaries. The further investigation in the discharge of the first five sustain pulses shows that the asymmetry and development of striation domains have much to do with the previously accumulated positive charges on the cathode which becomes the anode during the next sustain pulse. The non-local properties of the striation are discussed based on the observed phenomena. Simulation based on fluid model is conducted to show the discharge conditions on the anode during the development of striation to determine if the electron kinetics is in the non-local regime. The possible mechanism for striation formation arising from the non-locality of electron kinetics in AC-PDP is also discussed.