What is a Plasma Television?

Question: What is a Plasma Television?

Answer: Plasma television technology is similar to the technology used in a fluorescent lightbulb. The display itself consists of cells. Within each cell two glass panels are separated by a narrow gap in which neon-xenon gas is injected and sealed in plasma form during the manufacturing process. The gas is electrically charged at specific intervals when the Plasma set is in use. The charged gas then strikes red, green, and blue phosphors, thus creating a television image. Each group of red, green, and blue phosphors is called a pixel (picture element).

This technology is different from that of a traditional television. A traditional television has a Cathode Ray Tube, or CRT. A CRT is basically a large vacuum tube in which an electronic beam, emanating from a single point in the neck of the tube, scans the face of the tube very rapidly, which, in turn lights up red, green, or blue phosphors on the tube's surface in order to create an image.

The main advantage of Plasma over CRT technology is that, by utilizing a sealed cell with charged plasma for each pixel, the need for a scanning electron beam in eliminated, which, in turn, eliminates the need for a large Cathode Ray Tube to produce video images. This is why traditional televisions are shaped more like boxes and Plasma televisions are thin and flat.

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