Single substrate ac plasma display
AssigneeBell Telephone Laboratories, Incorporated
InventorGeorge W. Dick
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
It has been discovered that the electric field created at an ON site of a planar ac plasma display device in response to the combined sustain and wall voltages propagates along the cathodic electrode during each half cycle of the sustain signal. This means that the electrodes can be made to extend much farther away from the interelectrode gap than was heretofore believed, providing glow paths which extend farther away from the interelectrode gap than have been heretofore provided. Illustrative display devices taking advantage of this discovery include a seven-segment display in which each segment comprises a central electrode and two outer electrodes, and fixed-format displays in which each electrode is formed in the shape of an alphabetic character.
Claims15
Display apparatus comprising,
- a body of ionizable gas,
- a dielectric layer adjacent said gas,
- at least first and second elongate electrodes embedded in said layer, said electrodes being separated by a gap comprising a region of said layer, and
- signal means for creating a series of glow discharges in said gas in the vicinity of said electrodes, said signal means including means for establishing in said gap a series of electric fields initially centered at said gap, individual flux lines of each field having potential drops which exceed the gas striking voltages respectively associated with those lines.
- characterized in that at least a portion of each of said electrodes is located substantially further away from said gap than is any point on the longest of said lines.
Display apparatus comprising,
- a body of ionizable gas,
- a dielectric layer adjacent said gas,
- at least first and second elongate electrodes embedded in said layer, said electrodes being separated by a gap comprising a region of said layer, and
- means for receiving predetermined input signals adapted to establish in said gas a series of electric fields initially centered at said gap, individual flux lines of each field having potential drops which exceed the gas striking voltages respectively associated with those lines so that a series of glow discharges is created in said gas in the vicinity of said electrodes,
- characterized in that at least a portion of each of said electrodes is located substantially further away from said gap than is any point on the longest of said lines.
Display apparatus comprising,
- a nonconductive substrate,
- a layer of dielectric material disposed on said substrate,
- a body of ionizable gas,
- a nonconductive cover plate,
- means for sealing said cover plate to said layer to entrap said body of gas therebetween,
- a plurality of sets of elongate electrodes all embedded at substantially the same level within said layer, each set of electrodes comprising a central electrode and a pair of outer electrodes substantially collinear with said central electrode, and
- means for interconnecting each outer electrode to the other outer electrode of the same set.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.