2. Read and translate the text: Electronics

Electronics is the science that studies the principles and technology of devices based on the phenomena of electric currents in a vacuum (electronic devices) and in rarefied gases (ionic devices ). It’s the basis of modern automation, because it solves the most complicated problems in automation and production processes by relatively simple means.

The preparatory stage in the development of electronic devices was laid primarily by the profound researches of the Russian physicist Stoletov who first formulated the law of electron emission by a heated body (1839-1896). Next, the discovery of the vacuum device (the electron valve) was prepared by Lodygin’s invention of the first vacuum device to be widely used – the incandescent lamp (1847-1923). The thermionic emission effect was observed in the incandescent lamp already in 1881 by T. A. Edison: when a galvanometer is connected between the filament and a special auxiliary electrode in the lamp, there passes through the galvanometer a small current from the filament to the electrode. This current is caused by the transfer of electrons from the hot filament to the cold electrode.

However, it was only the discovery of radio by A. S. Popov, that gave a powerful stimulus to the development of electronics. The first two-electrode valves (detectors for wireless communication receivers) were made in 1904 soon after this discovery. The use of a grid made it possible to use the three-electrode valve first as an amplifier and then as a vacuum tube alternating current oscillator.

The first ionic power device was the mercury rectifier – a device for economical conversion of alternating current into direct current. Especially important was the use in electronics of the photoelectric effect, i.e., the emission of electrons by a metal under the action of light. This effect was discovered by Stoletov in 1888. He made the first photocell (prototube). Photocells were first used in sound films.

The principle of an electric or magnetic field acting on the direction of an electron beam in a vacuum or rarefied gas is employed in cathode-ray tubes which found application in television sets, electron microscopes, radar (for locating objects at a distance), and so forth.

Electronic beams are successfully used for welding. It has found broad application in industry as a means of automation, control and inspection, and as a direct means of fulfilling such operations as melting, cutting of super hard materials, welding.

Scientists opened up a new field of research in electronics – quantum electronics or atomic radio engineering. Quantum electronics has made it possible to develop a clock which has a margin of error of up to one second in three thousand years. It has also been used in the development of instruments for the generation of a rather wide range of electromagnetic waves – from one-millimeter waves to waves shorter than those of light. Quantum generators can focus light in extremely narrow beams. These instruments are called lasers and they can be used for cutting, drilling, welding, and other treatment of materials.

Electronics has found its application in electronic computers and television which are now widely used in industry, science and economy. Molecular electronics opens up absolutely new horizons.