Effect of Metastable O+(2D) on Reactions of O+ with Nitrogen Molecules

Laboratory measurements indicate that the metastable ions of O⁺ in reaction with N₂ in the low‐energy range (14 eV) react to form principally ${\mathrm{N}}_2^{+}$ , while the ion—molecule reaction to form NO⁺ has a very small probability. The ground‐state O⁺ ion reacts mainly to form NO⁺. The abundance of metastable O^{+ 2}D ions was determined using the observation that ${\mathrm{O}}^{+}{(}^2\mathrm{D)+}{\mathrm{N}}_2$ has a small cross section for forming NO⁺. The ion energy dependence for both reactions has been measured within the energy range 1.0–500 eV.