Discharge device driving method

Abstract

There is provided a method for driving a discharge device, especially a plasma display panel to improve a discharge process. The discharge device driving method prevents the increase of a discharge voltage and the decrease of an operating margin since space charge is efficiently controlled to lower the discharge voltage by adding a non-discharge signal for controlling space charge to a driving signal applied to at least one of two discharge electrodes, or to a third electrode, during a discharge sustaining period of the driving signals applied to both the discharge electrodes. In particular, the effects of the present invention is markedly excellent in the case of a pulse width of 1 &mgr;s or below. Discharge can be stably sustained by using a space-charge controlling non-discharge pulse of 200 ns˜1 &mgr;s wide, according to the panel structure, physical characteristics, and the driving method. In addition, in a method for applying the space-charge controlling non-discharge pulse according to the present invention, discharge efficiency can be increased by enabling the space-charge controlling non-discharge pulse to efficiently use space charge in a discharge space during a discharge sustaining period.