The Plasma TV Blog

The technology that brings television into our home has long been based on the cathode ray tube. The basic idea is to excite large numbers of small light sources, called pixels. The pixels are made up of three colors, red, blue, and green. By combining the three colors, a large variety of colors can be produced. In the cathode ray tube television (CRT), a beam of negatively charged particles is discharged inside a large glass tube. They excite phosphor atoms along the wide edge of the tube which causes the phosphor atoms to light up. The image is created by lighting up various areas along the screen at different mixtures of color, and different intensities.

The problem with CRT televisions, as any one who has ever lifted one is sure to know, is that the glass picture tubes are very large. When the screen is made larger, especially in a horizontal direction, the tube has to be bigger, and longer. A wide screen CRT would require such a massive tube that it would be fairly impractical, and would have a hard time fitting into a room.

Recently, a new technology has been developed that not only provides an increase in the quality of the picture produced, but also overcomes the size problem. The new plasma televisions replace the cathode ray tube with a flat panel allowing the screen size to be enlarged without increasing the depth. The television uses two ionized gases to excite the multicolored pixels, and produce the image.