How do you form plasma? I have a physics project contained by which I
I have a physics project contained by which I have to explain What is plasma, how it is used within a flat screen TV and how do they make it. I found out what it is and how it's used contained by a t.v. but I can't find a straight answer for how they make it...does anyone know?
Answers:
Some links that may or may not help out. Last link have references:
http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/pla...
http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/pla...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_disp... This info from the relationship below explains it better than I can. There are youtube videos on making plasma surrounded by your microwave but I wouldn't try any of them.
What is Plasma?
The central constituent in a fluorescent pale is a plasma, a gas made up of free-flowing ions (electrically charged atoms) and electrons (negatively charged particles). Under normal conditions, a gas is largely made up of uncharged particles. That is, the individual gas atoms include equal numbers of protons (positively charged particle in the atom's nucleus) and electrons. The negatively charged electrons clearly balance the positively charged protons, so the atom have a net charge of nothing.
If you introduce many free electrons into the gas by establishing an electrical voltage across it, the situation change very soon. The free electrons collide with the atoms, knock loose other electrons. With a missing electron, an atom loses its balance. It have a net positive charge, making it an ion.
In a plasma beside an electrical current running through it, negatively charged particles are rushing toward the positively charged nouns of the plasma, and positively charged particles are rushing toward the negatively charged nouns.
illustration of how atoms emit lighting
In this mad rush, particle are constantly bumping into each other. These collisions excite the gas atoms surrounded by the plasma, causing them to release photons of dynamism. (For details on this process, see How Fluorescent Lamps Work.)
Xenon and neon atoms, the atoms used in plasma screen, release light photons when they are excited. Mostly, these atoms release ultraviolet table lamp photons, which are invisible to the human eye. But ultraviolet photons can be used to excite visible pallid photons, as we'll see in the subsequent section.