Metastable oxygen emission bands

Science. 1978 Nov 17;202(4369):751-3. doi: 10.1126/science.202.4369.751.

Abstract

Recombination of ground-state oxygen atoms populates six different bound electronic states of molecular oxygen. Of the six optical transitions expected between the three upper states at 4 to 4.5 electron volts and the two lowest states, five have been observed in the afterglow of a conventional helium-oxygen microwave discharge in both 16O(2) and (18)O(2), three of them for the first time in gas-phase spectra. Generation of these emissions from oxygen atoms in a system free of molecular oxygen establishes that atom recombination is the production mechanism.