Table of contents

New crystal structures, in particular incommensurate composite crystals, discovered in the high-pressure phases of Group I, II, IV, and V elements are described, and their intermetallic and other binary structural analogs are discussed.

The optical properties of wide-gap semiconductor films on metal substrates were investigated experimentally by infrared spectroscopy, Raman scattering, and femtosecond spectroscopy techniques as well as theoretically in the framework of linear crystal optics. The optical spectra of such planar structures (microresonators) were shown to bear information on electromagnetic excitations of both the surface and the volume of the structure. The optical spectra are determined by the interaction of all dipole-active excitations of the component materials with the electromagnetic modes of the microresonator, which in turn are determined by the permittivities of each component material, microcavity (microresonator) thickness, and the experimental conditions.

Kinetics of electrons moving in a gas or a plasma under the action of external fields is considered. Elementary processes of elastic and inelastic electron–atom collisions responsible for electron kinetics in weakly ionized atomic gases are analyzed. Various regimes of evolution of electrons in a gas or a plasma in external fields are considered, and the character of atom excitations under these conditions is studied. Methods of describing the electron kinetics in gases and plasma are applied to modeling the electron drift in condensed systems. It is shown that the electric properties of metals and the behavior of an excess electron in dielectrics have common features with electron drift in gases and plasmas. The drift of an excess electron in condensed inert gases is reviewed.

Field amplification factors at the surfaces of two charged conducting balls are calculated numerically. It is shown that as the balls are brought closer together, except when their potentials are equal, the amplification factors go to infinity, and in the case of like-charged balls the field at the surface of one of them changes sign. Breakdown field strengths for the air gap between balls of a different diameter are calculated using the experimental data of other authors as the base. The results suggest that the minimum breakdown field strength is 26 kV cm⁻¹ . The author's earlier results on the interaction force between the balls are revised.