This paper examines the optical and discharge characteristics of alternating-current plasma display panel when adopting the Al2O3 reflective layer. The Al2O3 reflective layer is deposited under the phosphor layer by using the screen-printing method. The resulting changes in the optical and discharge characteristics, including the power consumption, color temperature, luminance, luminous efficiency, scanning electron microscopy image, and reflectance, are then compared for both cases with and without Al2O3 reflective layer. As a result of optimizing the thicknesses between the Al2O3 and phosphor layers, the luminance and luminous efficiency are improved by about 17% and 7%, respectively. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.