International Scientific Journals
of Scientific Technical Union of Mechanical Engineering "Industry 4.0"

The primary role of the space materials science is to ensure the long-term trouble-free operation of materials and elements of equipment in a space environment. The achievements of space materials science are a solid foundation for solving these tasks. In this paper we present the first part of the analysis of some different aspects of the space environment and their effect on the properties of materials (such as high vacuum conditions, own external atmosphere, collisions with particles, solar electromagnetic radiation, solar wind, penetrating corpuscular radiation) which are located or are mounted on the body of the International Space Station. But there are still problems such as the electrification of satellites, the work of materials in the atmosphere of heavy nuclei, the surface potential of the International Space Station, etc., which will be the subject of our next, second part of this study.

When it comes to space vehicles for humans (as the International Space Station), the most important goal is how to achieve safety in the space vehicles, that people should survive their travel to space and return safely, in good health. In this connection, the primary role of the space materials science is to ensure the long-term trouble-free operation of materials and elements of equipment in a space environment. In this paper we present the second part of the brief analysis of some different aspects of the space environment and their effect on the properties of materials which are located or are mounted on the body of the International Space Station.

In this paper we study in detail the influence of the longitudinal constant electric field on the energy values of a digital quantum well AlxGa1-xAs/GaAs structure and its equivalent graded-composition analog quantum well. We calculate the energies of the electron and hole bound states, the energies of the main optical transitions and their Stark shifts. The spatial distributions of the main electronic and hole states at various given values of the applied electric field are also calculated. The semi-empirical tight-binding approximation in the spin dependent sp³s* basis is used and is carried out by surface Green function matching employing an algorithm previously developed and used to study inhomogeneous systems. The aim of these calculations is to find out in detail to what extent these two structures have similar or different properties in the presence of an applied electric field. We compare our results with the results for the conventional rectangular quantum well and with the available experimental data for quantum wells with similar parameters.

The present work is motivated by the tremendous interest in the semiconductor nanostructures. The study of the quantum confined Stark effect (QCSE) in semiconductor superlattices and semiconductor quantum wells has attracted a lot of attention, as it is important both for fundamental physics and in devices for optoelectronic applications. The present paper is a brief review of the main electronic properties, which are the basis for the QCSE device applications of semiconductor superlattices and semiconductor quantum wells.