LXCat is an open‐access platform (http://www.lxcat.net) for curating data needed for modeling the electron and ion components of technological plasmas. The data types presently supported on LXCat are scattering cross sections and swarm/transport parameters, ion‐neutral interaction potentials, and optical oscillator strengths. Twenty‐four databases contributed by different groups around the world can be accessed on LXCat. New contributors are welcome; the database contributors retain ownership and are responsible for the contents and maintenance of the individual databases. This article summarizes the present status of the project.

An overview is presented of experimental and theoretical research in the field of physics and engineering of singlet delta oxygen (SDO) production in low-temperature plasma of various electric discharges. Attention is paid mainly to the SDO production with SDO yield adequate for the development of an electric discharge oxygen–iodine laser (DOIL). The review comprises a historical sketch describing the main experimental results on SDO physics in low-temperature plasma obtained since the first detection of SDO in electric discharge in the 1950s and the first attempt to launch a DOIL in the 1970s up to the mid-1980s when several research groups started their activity aimed at DOIL development, stimulated by success in the development of a chemical oxygen–iodine laser (COIL). A detailed analysis of theoretical and experimental research on SDO production in electric discharge from the mid-1980s to the present, when the first DOIL has been launched, is given. Different kinetic models of oxygen low-temperature plasma are compared with the model developed by the authors. The latter comprises electron kinetics based on the accompanying solution of the electron Boltzmann equation, plasma chemistry including reactions of excited molecules and numerous ion–molecular reactions, thermal energy balance and electric circuit equation. The experimental part of the overview is focused on the experimental methods of SDO detection including experiments on the measurements of the Einstein coefficient for SDO transition and experimental procedures of SDO production in self-sustained and non-self-sustained discharges and analysis of different plasma-chemical processes occurring in oxygen low-temperature plasma which brings limitation to the maximum SDO yield and to the lifetime of the SDO in an electric discharge and its afterglow. Quite recently obtained results on gain and output characteristics of DOIL and some projects aimed at the development of high-power DOIL are discussed.

The possibility of obtaining a high specific input energy in an electron-beam sustained discharge ignited in oxygen gas mixtures O 2 : Ar : CO (or H 2) at the total gas pressures of 10-100 Torr was experimentally demonstrated. The specific input energy per molecular component exceeded ∼6 kJ l −1 atm −1 (150 kJ mol −1) as a small amount of carbon monoxide was added into a gas mixture of oxygen and argon. It was theoretically demonstrated that one might expect to obtain a singlet delta oxygen yield of 25% exceeding its threshold value needed for an oxygen-iodine laser operation at room temperature, when maintaining a non-self-sustained discharge in oxygen gas mixtures with molecular additives CO, H 2 or D 2. The efficiency of singlet delta oxygen production can be as high as 40%.

The vibrational energy relaxation in collisions between N2 molecules in the low- and medium-lying vibrationally excited levels was revisited using the semiclassical coupled-state method and the use of two different potential-energy surfaces having the same short-range potential recently determined from ab initio calculations but with different long-range interactions. Compared to the data reported in the classical work by Billing and Fisher [Chem. Phys. 43, 395 (1979)], the newly calculated vibration-to-translation rate constant K(1,0 / 0,0) is in much better agreement with the available experimental data over a large temperature interval, from T = 200 K up to T = 6000 K. Nevertheless, as far as the vibration-to-translation exchanges are concerned, the lower-temperature regime remains quite critical in that the new rate constants do not completely account for the rate constant curvature suggested by the experiments for temperatures lower than T = 500 K. The dependence of the state-selected vibration-to-vibration rate constants, K(v,v-delta v / 0,1), both upon the vibrational quantum number v and the gas temperature are calculated. The substantial deviations from previously found behaviors could have major consequences for the vibrational kinetic modeling of N2-containing gas mixtures.

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