Electron beam excited mixtures of O2 in argon. I. Spectroscopy

Abstract

We have studied the production of O(1S0) in mixtures of oxygen and argon excited by an electron beam as a function of dopant density, total pressure, and electron beam current. For these conditions we have estimated the populations of O(3P) and O3 from the O(1S0) quenched lifetimes. We found significant production of O(1S0) by charge transfer from Ar+2 to O2 and O3 followed by dissociative recombination to O(1S0). We have measured an optimum quantum efficiency for this process of 11%. We discuss model calculations for the production of O(1S0), O(3P), and O3 which are in reasonable agreement with experiment.