What to clean a plasma TV with?

Why are they called "plasma" TV's, and what is the material behind the circuit boards?

• I'm stripping down an old plasma TV and noticed that it's basically a complicated way to manage an array of CFL's. cold fluorescent Lamps. I also noticed there's some pads of thermally conductive material. it's kinda gooey silicious stuff, dunno what it's made of but it feels like it's got silicon in it, makes your hands very slippery. so it's silicatious. they put on the back of circuit boards, as a way to transfer heat. it's totally inert and extremely good at conducting heat. it's a thermally conductive mat and it's in various layers. but pressed between the boards and the panel. it's similar to the stuff, when if you've ever pulled apart a CD rom there's a square of this stuff on the chips and pressed against the backing panel of the drive just to transfer heat. don't know if you guys can hazard a guess as to what that material is Why are plasma TV's called plasma TV's? they don't seem to use plasma. and what on earth is that material?

• Answer:

  They are called 'plasma' TVs because the dot (pixel) uses a cavity like a small CRT with phosphor in it. The phosphor electrode will emit a plasma stream similiar to the gun in a CRT. Here's some more background for you to compare notes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathode_ray_tube http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_tv http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LCD But most importantly is that plasma TVs will offer a million-to-one contrast ratio that no LCD can match ! Also plasma TVs are 1,000 times faster for refresh than LCDs. But plasma TVs use high voltage like CRTs to operate, so they generally use more power. There used to be a problem with the phosphor age-ing years ago, but that is now solved.