Production and physical properties of cesium plasma by resonance absorption

For the purpose of producing cesium plasma, cesium vapor was irradiated by the resonance radiation from the outside. By the resonance radiation, the Cs atoms are excited to the doublet resonance levels, 6 P 1/2 and 6 P 3/2 and then are ionized through the collision process. Under these conditions, a quiescent current-free plasma with a moderate density of the order of 10 12 cm -3 was obtained. It was confirmed that the dissociative recombination is a dominant process of the plasma decay and the molecular ion is dominant species. The radial distributions of the electron density have a minimum at the center of the tube.