Production efficiencies of Kr*(1s5,1s4) atoms leading to vacuum-ultraviolet emissions in ac plasma display panels with Kr-Ne binary mixtures measured by laser-absorption spectroscopy -: art. no. 103302

Ne-Kr gas mixtures with high Kr concentrations were applied to ac plasma display panels. Spatiotemporal behaviors of excited Kr atoms in the 1s(5) metastable state and the 1s(4) resonance state were measured by microscopic laser-absorption spectroscopy in the binary mixtures with Kr concentrations of 20% and 40%. A systematic comparison was done between the characteristics of Ne-Kr-filled panels and those of conventional Ne-Xe panels with the same structure but with lower Xe concentrations of 5% and 10%. For example, the total number of Kr-*(1s(5)) atoms in a unit cell ranged from 7.4x10(7) to 2.0x10(8), at the peak was apparently smaller than the value of Xe-*(1s(5)) atoms. However, when the difference in the decay rate of the excited atoms by three-body collision processes is taken into account, the production efficiency of vacuum-ultraviolet (VUV) emission from Kr-2(*) excimers is as large as that from Xe-2(*) excimers in a usual panel since these processes lead directly to the formation of excimers. From the measured density of Kr-*(1s(4)) atoms, it is estimated that the contribution of the atomic resonance line is smaller than the excimer band at those high Kr concentrations. In any case, by summing up those two contributions to the VUV emission, the overall efficiency in the Ne-Kr(40%) panel is estimated to be comparable to that in the Ne-Xe(10%) one. (c) 2005 American Institute of Physics.