Cylindrical plasmas generated by an annular beam of ultraviolet light

Abstract

We investigate a cylindrical plasma system with ionization, by an annular beam of ultraviolet light, taking place only in the cylinder's outer region. In the steady state, both the outer and inner regions contain a plasma, with that in the inner region being uniform and field-free. At the interface between the two regions, there is an infinitesimal jump in ion density, the magnitude approaching zero in the quasi-neutral (λD → 0) limit. The system offers the possibility of producing a uniform stationary plasma in the laboratory, hitherto obtained only with thermally produced alkali plasmas.