A fully ionized plasma consisting of 2×1019D+ions with an average energy of 50 eV is produced by irradiating a free‐falling solidD2pellet with a sequence of two laser pulses. An Nd–glass laser pulse first evaporates the pellet and a CO2laser pulse ionizes and heats the resultingD2cloud. This staged laser process couples about 2/3 of the energy of the 70 ns CO2laser spike into the plasma. The techniques for making, dropping, and irradiating the pellet are discussed in detail. The properties of the resulting plasma are described, and a brief account is given of the cusp containment experiment for which this plasma production method was developed.