Electron impact dissociative excitation of O2: 1. Kinetic energy distributions of fast oxygen atoms

[1] The kinetic energy distribution of oxygen atoms resulting from electron impact dissociation of O2 has been measured. A high-resolution vacuum ultraviolet spectrometer was employed for the measurement of the OI(115.2 nm, 130.4 nm, 135.6 nm) fine-structure emission line profiles at 35 eV and 100 eV electron impact energies. The deconvolved line profiles of atomic oxygen reveal the existence of a broad line profile (∼30–40 mA full width at half maximum) produced from a combination of dissociative excitation and dissociative ionization excitation processes. The atomic oxygen kinetic energy distributions at 100 eV electron impact energy spans the energy range from 1 to 10 eV, with a peak value near 1 eV. The excitation functions of OI(115.2 nm, 130.4 nm, 135.6 nm) were measured in the vicinity of threshold, from 14 to 50 eV. The PACS classification is 34.80.Gs (electron scattering-molecular dissociation) and 33.50Dq (molecular spectra-fluorescence).