Sheetlike microplasma arrays have many applications

The availability of an cost-effective sheetlike flexible display that can be hung on a wall or wrapped around curved surfaces, will allow video displays to be placed anywhere for a variety of applications. It is expected that the availability of a thin, lightweight, inexpensive, and nontoxic source of white light will transform residential and commercial lighting significantly. The emerging field of microplasma technology has significant potential for the next generation of displays and lighting. Microscopic plasmas having the form of cylinders, ellipsoids, or other shapes can be generated by large numbers in microcavities by shrinking a conventional plasma lamp considerably. These microcavities have size similar to the diameter of a human hair and are built by processes developed by very-large-scale-integration (VLSI) and MEMs professionals.