Kinetics of Oxygen Atom Production in R.F. Discharges of Moderate Pressures

The dissociation of molecular oxygen has been studied in a radiofrequency plasma at a pressure of 20 torr in a flow system. The results show that the main channel for dissociation is via electron excitation to the Herzberg and Schumann systems with negligible contribution of the channel involving the O 2 (a 1 Δ g ) metastable. While oxygen atom recombination can be followed outside the discharge region, kinetic data show that recombination within the discharge is effectively suppressed, probably as a consequence of a recombination assisted dissociation mechanism. This leads to high concentrations of O ‐atoms at the discharge exit.