Abstract
The cell structure of surface discharge AC-PDPs with a long gap between the sustaining electrodes achieves high luminous efficiency. However at the same time, the long gap cell structure caused high firing voltage. Thus driving is difficult. The experimental results of firing voltage with gap length as a parameter disagree with Paschen's scaling law, a well-known relationship between the firing voltage and the product of the gas pressure and the gap length. We thought that this deviation from Paschen's scaling law might result from the non-uniformity of the electric field. To evaluate the influence of this non-uniformity of the electric field, we derived a new governing equation for firing voltage, and calculated the results. The calculated results corresponded to the experimental data qualitatively.
