“…In this case, a non-luminescent oxide layer, which is known to reduce the CL intensity of the CRT/FED phosphors, may form on the surface. For examples, it was demonstrated that when zinc sulfide (ZnS) based phosphors were exposed to a prolonged irradiation by energetic beam of electrons, the ZnS host dissociated into reactive ionic Zn 2+ and S 2-species, which in turn combined with ambient vacuum gases such as O 2 and H 2 O to form non-luminescent ZnO or ZnSO 4 layers or H 2 S gas (Swart el al., 1998;Itoh et al, 1989) as explained by the ESSCR model (Holloway et al, 1996(Holloway et al, , 2000. In the case of oxide based systems, the electron beam induced dissociation of atomic species is followed by desorption of oxygen from the surface.…”