The Plasma Display Panel

Bitzer and Slottow, 1964. A quarter-million tiny neon cells behind one glass sheet, each a pixel. The trick is memory: charge stored on an internal dielectric keeps a struck cell lit on a sustain voltage too low to have started it, so the panel holds its image with no refresh. It is the Nixie's glow discharge, engineered into a flat grid.

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A pixel that is a neon lamp

A plasma cell is a Nixie shrunk to 0.3 mm: same strike and sustain voltages, same Penning gas. Three changes make it a display: a grid of tiny cells; electrodes hidden behind a dielectric that STORES charge; and UV from the discharge lighting red/green/blue phosphors instead of using the neon light directly. Read the embedded Nixie blueprint for the discharge itself.

必要な工具:

Notebook and Pencil

The memory margin: two voltages, and the gap that stores a bit

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必要な工具:

Desktop Computer

Strike one cell on a bench, and find the Paschen minimum

Build one cell and find the Paschen minimum. Two electrodes a few mm apart in a jar on a vacuum pump; HV supply through a series resistor; meter on the strike voltage. Admit gas slowly and the strike voltage falls, hits a MINIMUM, then rises again — the sweet spot where an electron gains enough energy and still finds atoms to hit. Plasma cells sit there, which is why they strike at ~200 V not thousands. HV safety: one hand behind your back, bleeder resistor across the rail, eye protection. Evacuated glass can implode.

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