Conventional backlight for liquid crystal display (LCD) uses mercury which leads to environmental pollution. In this study, characteristics of AC coplanar type mercury-free plasma flat lamp have been studied. Pollution-free Xe-He is adopted as a discharge gas system. Since the Xe gas has a lower efficiency in generating vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) than mercury, the improvement of luminance and luminous efficiency in the Xe gas system is very important. The electrode, dielectric, and phosphor layers constituting lamp are formed on the bottom glass by the screen printing method. The effects of pulse shape, on-time, and pulse frequency on the luminance and luminous efficiency have been examined. For Xe(5%)-He gas, the lamp exhibits higher efficiency with sharper pulse shape, higher peak voltage, and shorter pulse on-time (up to 2 μs ). Higher efficiency and lower consumption of power were obtained at 30 kHz than at 60 kHz. The collision of ion to bottom electrodes is a dominant factor to raise the lamp temperature. Therefore the high voltage and low current discharge system is necessary for reduction of the lamp temperature as well as for enhancement of the luminous efficiency.