LCD (Liquid Crystal Display)

DLP™ (Digital Light Processing)

Plasmas

Most people use the term plasma in reference to any flat-panel display, when they are only correct a percentage of the time.  Plasma technology is very different from liquid crystal display technology, although the final product generally looks very similar. 

As little as 3 inches thick; very good home-theater image quality in best examples; wide viewing angle; superior motion resolution. Less energy-efficient than LCDs; slight potential for burn-in; sometimes lower native resolution than similarly sized LCDs. The life span of plasma TVs is another area that's improved dramatically with the last few generations of the technology. Partly in response to claims made by LCD TV makers, plasma manufacturers now claim their panels last an extremely long time. Most plasma makers today claim a life span of 60,000 hours before the panel fades to half brightness. That's more than 20 years if the TV is on for 8 hours per day. Prices of plasmas have fallen, and pictures have improved dramatically, perpetuating plasma's place as king of the flat-panel home-theater hill.

Plasmas are comprised of a flat, lightweight surface that is coated with millions of tiny glass bubbles that are filled with gaseous Xenon. Inside each of these bubbles are three smaller hollow spaces, one blue, one green, and one red. Each of these bubbles, containing the three colored spaces, is equivalent to one pixel. In order to display an image, electricity is pumped through the space, exciting the pixels, and causing them to give off ultraviolet light which then will cause the surface of the plasma panel to glow. Since the gaseous bubbles are actually giving off light, this technology is emissive, which is one of the major distinguishing characteristics between it and LCDs. However, this emissive technology allows plasmas to display colors that are richer, more vivid, and truer to life.

When considered inclusively, it is clear that plasma science and technology encompasses immense diversity, pervasiveness and potential. Diversity through numerous topical areas; pervasiveness by covering the full range of energy, density, time and spatial scales; and potential through innumerable current and future applications.