ELECTRON-IMPACT DISSOCIATION OF O2

The production of metastable O(5S) atoms by electron impact dissociative excitation of O2 has been observed using the technique of translational spectroscopy. The kinetic energy spectra show two distinct structures with maxima near 0.13 and 2.5 eV. These distributions indicate that two distinct excitation processes are involved in the production of the O(5S) species, one from the dissociation of O2* bound states in their repulsive region, one coming from the dissociation of completely repulsive O2* potentials. Excitation functions for both these excitation processes have been measured and compared with earlier data.