The excitation coefficients of the O
2 (a
1Δ
g) state by low energy electrons in O
2-Ar, O
2-N
2-Ar, O
2-N
2 mixtures and pure O
2 have been measured using a drift tube technique.The time dependence of the absolute intensity of the 1.27μm band emission was measured for 0.05% O
2 in Ar, for (1-5)% O
2 in N
2-Ar, for 20% O
2 in N
2 at total gas density of (2.3-16)×10
18cm
-3 and for pure O
2 at total gas density of (0.97-6.44)×10
17cm
-3. The electric field to gas density ratio
E/N was varied from (0.5-5)×10
-17 V-cm
2 for O
2-Ar mixtures, from (0.2-3)×10
-16 V-cm
2 for O
2-N
2-Ar, O
2-N
2 mixtures and from (0.8-7)×10
-16 V-cm
2 for pure O
2. The measured decay constants yield a normalized diffusion coefficient for O
2 (a
1Δ
g) in Ar of
DN≈1.65×10
18 cm
-1 sec
-1 and rate coefficients for quenching by O
2 and Ar of 1.51×10
-18 cm
3 sec
-1 and 1.86×10
-20cm
3 sec
-1 respectively. Our experimental electron excitation coefficients agree satisfactorily with values calculated using derived sets of electron collision cross sections for O
2, N
2 and Ar.
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