The higher the voltage, the brighter the glow. So he took 100 of these little neon bulbs and arranged them in a 10×10 grid on a piece of perfboard. There’s nothing fancy around the backside ...
Neon bulbs work on the principle of voltage-induced ionization, creating a visible glowing plasma. If the applied voltage is high enough, around 60 to 80 V, electrons get knocked off the neutral ...