Vol 59, No 2 (2016)

We consider the experimental results obtained by studying the large-scale structure of the HF-disturbed ionospheric region. The experiments were performed using the SURA heating facility. The disturbed ionospheric region was sounded by signals radiated by GPS navigation satellite beacons as well as by signals of low-orbit satellites (radio tomography). The results of the experiments show that large-scale plasma density perturbations induced at altitudes higher than the F₂ layer maximum can contribute significantly to the measured variations of the total electron density and can, with a certain arrangement of the reception points, be measured by the GPS sounding method.

We develop a self-consistent model allowing one to analyze the properties of the interdigital transducer of the surface acoustic waves as a symmetric five-layered waveguide on a piezoelectric substrate with three possible values of the phase velocity of the acoustic-wave propagation along the longitudinal axis of the system. The transcendental dispersion relation for describing the waves in such a system is derived and the method for its instructive graphic analysis is proposed. The condition under which only the fundamental transverse mode is excited in the waveguide is formulated. The method for calculating the normalized power and the transverse distribution of the field of the continuous-spectrum waves radiated from the considered waveguide is described. It is shown that the characteristic spatial scale of the longitudinal damping of the amplitude of this field at the waveguide center can be a qualitative estimate of the transverse-mode formation length. The efficiency of a new method for suppressing the higher-order transverse waveguide modes is demonstrated.

We consider the problem of the influence of diffraction effects on the result of measuring the absorption coefficient of ultrasound in weakly absorbing liquids by the pulse method. Diffraction attenuation of an ultrasonic signal in a measuring cell using solid-state delay lines is calculated. It is shown that the use of delay lines of the ultrasonic signal leads to a considerable distortion of the measured absorption coefficient in the low-frequency range from the true value and can either overestimate or underestimate the results.

We present a prototype of a quasioptical Mach—Zehnder interferometer with wave beam splitters in the form of reflective diffraction gratings. Characteristics of the diplexer are studied experimentally at frequencies of about 140 GHz. The measurement results are close to the calculated ones.

We perform a computational and analytical study of how the thickness of the barrier layer in nanoheterostructures and the gate-drain capacitance C_gd influence the microwave parameters (limiting frequency of current amplification and maximum generation frequency) and noise parameters (noise factor) of a field-effect AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistor. The results of complex measurements of the parameters of such transistors based on nanoheterostructures with a barrier layer thickness of 3.5–15.7 nm, which were performed within the framework of four technological routes in the range 0.1–67 GHz, are presented. It is shown that in order to reduce the noise ratio and improve the microwave parameters, it is necessary to optimize both the parameters of nanoheterostructures and the manufacturing techniques. In particular, the thickness of the barrier layer should be reduced, and the gate length should be chosen such as to maximize the product of the squared maximum current amplification frequency in the interior of the transistor and the output impedance between the drain and the source. Additionally, attention should be given to the shape of the gate to reduce the capacitance C_gd. Under certain conditions of manufacture of nitride field-effect HEMT, one can achieve a lower noise factor compared with the transistors based on arsenide nanoheterostructures.