[en] We have made electrical, optical and spectroscopic measurements on a dielectric barrier discharge cell, similar to the cells in an ac plasma display panel. A plasma display panel (PDP) is an array of discharge cells, where each cell is one pixel. The array lies between two parallel sheets of glass separated by a small uniform gap. Each sheet has a set of parallel electrodes, oriented horizontally on one sheet and vertically on the other. The resulting two sets of electrodes become an x and y addressable grid. The electrodes are coated with a thin layer of dielectric material in the case of an ac-PDP. The space is filled with a gas or gas-mixture. The development of plasma display panels is being driven by the imminent introduction of HDTV technology