This article describes the behavior of electron-cyclotron-resonance-heated
plasmas, with particular attention paid to mirror-confined plasmas, which a
re of great interest in plasma processing and in highly charged ion product
ion. Using a one-dimensional (in velocity) description of the electron dist
ribution function, we calculate the electron density and confinement time.
The theoretical results are compared with experiments, and it is shown that
a maximum critical density can be achieved in such plasmas.