Utkarsh Patel
Published: 2019
Total Pages: 0
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Despite vast advancements in computational hardware capabilities, full-wave electromagnetic simulations of many multiscale problems continue to be a daunting task. Multiscale problems are encountered, for example, when modeling interconnects in an integrated circuit or when simulating complex electromagnetic structures. In interconnect problems, the main challenge is to model the multiscale skin effect that develops inside the conductors at high frequency. Similarly, complex electromagnetic structures are multiscale because these surfaces are tens of wavelengths large, while each unit cell often contains subwavelength geometrical features. This thesis presents reduced-order integral equation methods to solve complex multiscale problems. For interconnect problems, it proposes a single-source surface integral equation method to model 2-D and 3-D conductors or dielectrics of arbitrary shape. In this approach, electromagnetic fields inside a conductor or a dielectric object are accurately modeled by a differential surface admittance operator and an equivalent electric current density on the object's surface. Since the proposed method does not use any volumetric unknowns, it is more efficient than volumetric methods encountered in the literature and commercial solvers, which require a fine mesh to model the skin effect. Furthermore, since the proposed approach is single-source, it is more efficient than other surface methods in the literature that require both equivalent electric and magnetic current densities. Numerical results show that the proposed method can be over 100x and 20x faster than commercial FEM solvers for 2-D and 3-D problems, respectively, while consuming significantly lower memory. The proposed surface method for conductors and dielectrics is further generalized to develop the so-called macromodeling technique to simulate complex scatterers. In this technique, a heterogeneous scatterer composed of dielectric and PEC objects is accurately modeled by equivalent electric and magnetic current densities that are introduced on a fictitious surface enclosing the element. The crux of the technique is to solve for unknowns only on the fictitious surface, instead of the scatterers, which results in fewer unknowns. Numerical results show that the proposed macromodeling technique can efficiently simulate electrically large reflectarrays composed of square patches and Jerusalem crosses, that are difficult to simulate even with commercial solvers.