The permanent image sticking phenomena were examined and compared for the two different sustain driving waveforms such as the positive and negative sustain waveforms. To compare the permanent image sticking phenomena for both waveforms, the differences in the display luminance, chromaticity coordinate, color temperature, infrared emission, and discharge current were measured in the image sticking and non-image sticking cells. It was observed that the negative sustain waveform contributed to mitigating the permanent image sticking in comparison with the positive sustain waveform. This phenomenon appears due to the lesser degradation of the visible-conversion characteristics of the phosphor layer caused by the deposition of lower amounts of sputtered Mg species on the phosphor layers, as confirmed by V-t closed curve, atomic force microscope, and photoluminescence analyses.