Development of a Ray-Tracing Optical Simulation Model of Plasma Display Panel

A ray-tracing model is developed for accurate optical simulation of plasma display panel (PDP). Thorough spectroscopic characterization of materials properties is carried out, based on which four types of material models of PDP layer materials are developed and incorporated in the cell model. Four test panels with different bus electrode structures are fabricated, the geometrical structure of which is measured and reflected in the ray-tracing model. Plasma fluid simulation is carried out to derive the spatial distribution of the ultraviolet light in the cell and the total number of Xe species. Simulation results show that the simulated panel reflectances are consistent with the experimental values within 3% error. In addition, the normalized angular luminance profiles obtained by simulation agree well with the measured results. However, the on-axis luminance value of the PDP panel, which is affected by both optical and plasma simulation, cannot be predicted accurately by this study.