  Pulsar radio emission is believed to be originated from the electron-positron
pairs streaming out from the polar cap region. Pair formation, an essential
condition for pulsar radio emission, is believed to be sustained in active
pulsars via one photon process from either the curvature radiation (CR) or the
inverse Compton scattering (ICS) seed photons, or sometimes via two photon
process. In pulsars with super-critical magnetic fields, some more exotic
processes, such as magnetic photon splitting and bound pair formation, will
also play noticeable roles. All these effects should be synthesized to discuss
radio pulsar death both in the conventional long-period regime due to the
turnoff of the active gap, and in the high magnetic field regime due to the
possible suppression of the free pair formation. Here I briefly review some
recent progress in understanding radio pulsar death.
