Analysis of a MgO protective layer deposited with ion-beam-assisted deposition in an AC PDP

MgO layer plays an important role for plasma display panels (PDPs). In this study, a MgO layer was deposited using the oxygen-ion-beam-assisted method while the assisting oxygen-ion-beam energy was varied from 100 eV to 500 eV. In order to investigate the relationship between the electron emission and the defect levels of the MgO layer, we measured the cathodoluminescence (CL) spectra of the MgO thin films, and we analyzed the CL peak intensity and peak transition. We found that the assisting ion-beam energy played an important role in the peak intensity and the peak transition of the CL spectrum. Crystallization of the MgO thin film was also measured using X-ray diffraction (XRD), and the surface quality was inspected using atomic forces microscopy (AFM) in order to analyze the characteristics of the MgO thin films.