We describe a laser induced fluorescence spectroscopy with using an evanescent wave in order to research the interaction with metastable excited atoms in plasma and the surface of a plasma display panel(PDP). First the distribution of metastable excited atoms is calculated in the relation with the interaction on the surface and it is shown that the evanescent laser spectroscopy(ELS)is effective to measure the surface interaction in active discharge. Second the mean density of the metastable excited atoms in PDP is measured by a laser absorption technique and the evanescent mode fluorescence spectroscopy induced by a laser is applied to a discharge panel in a large scale as a preliminary experiment.
