AbstractThis work is devoted to the investigation of physical processes in a non‐equilibrium plasma of a binary mixture of inert gases. The degree of radial separation of the mixture was found to increase with increasing pressure of buffer gas and discharge current and to decrease with growing partial pressure of the admixture. The correlation of the radial and axial types of separation was shown experimentally. The kinetics of population of the metastable states He(23S) and Xe(3P22) and of charged particles was investigated using an impulse regime. The time for the establishment of the stationary state of the radial distribution of the components was found to be several times less than the time of reestablishment of the homogeneous distribution of the atomic component after switching off the discharge impulse. The phenomenon of a decreasing effective diffusion length of the discharge was found. This effect has essential influence on the time for the establishment of the stationary state of radial cataphoresi