65N30 Finite elements, Rayleigh-Ritz and Galerkin methods, finite methods
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Institute
Transparent boundary conditions for Maxwell's equations: Numerical concepts beyond the PML method
(2009)
Optical technologies are ubiquitously used in hi-tech devices. As a common feature of such devices one finds structures with dimensions in the order of the wavelength of the used light. To design and produce such devices, the wave nature of light must be taken into account. Accordingly, robust simulation tools are required which are based on rigorously solving Maxwell's equations, the governing equations of light propagation within macroscopic media. This thesis contributes to the modeling and the numerical computation of light scattering problems: Light scattering problems are typically posed on the entire space. The Perfectly-Matched -Layer method (PML) is widely used to restrict the simulation problem onto a bounded computational domain. We propose an adaptive PML method which exhibits a good convergence even for critical problems where standard PML implementations fail. Besides the computation of the near field, that is the electromagnetic field within the computational domain, it is of major interest to evaluate the electromagnetic field in the exterior domain and to compute the far field. So far, this was numerically only possible for simple geometries such as homogeneous exterior domains or layered media. To deal with more complicated devices, for example with waveguide inhomogeneities, we develop an evaluation formula based on the PML solution which allows for an exterior domain field evaluation in a half space above the device. Finally, we generalize the PML method to problems with multiply structured exterior domains. The term “multiply structured exterior domain” is defined in this thesis and means that the exterior domain exhibits several half-infinite structures. Mathematically, this gives rise to various complications. For example, no analytical solutions to Maxwell's equations for standard light sources are available in the exterior domain, which are needed to describe the incoming field in a light scattering problem. To tackle this we propose a new light scattering problem formulation which fits well into the PML method framework and which may be regarded as an extension of classical contributions by Sommerfeld, Wiener and Hopf. An exterior domain evaluation formula for multiply structured exterior domains with an extended illumination is derived as well.
In this paper we propose a new finite element realization of the Perfectly Matched Layer method (PML-method). Our approach allows to deal with arbitrary shaped polygonal domains and with certain types of inhomogeneous exterior domains. Among the covered inhomogeneities are open waveguide structures playing an essential role in integrated optics. We give a detailed insight to implementation aspects. Numerical examples show exponential convergence behavior to the exact solution with the thickness of the PML sponge layer.
The solution of scattering problems described by the Helmholtz equation on unbounded domains is of importance for a wide variety of applications, for example in electromagnetics and acoustics. An implementation of a solver for scattering problems based on the programming language Matlab is introduced. The solver relies on the finite-element-method and on the perfectly-matched-layer-method, which allows for the simulation of scattering problems on complex geometries surrounded by inhomogeneous exterior domains. This report gives a number of detailed examples and can be understood as a user manual to the freely accessible code of the solver HelmPole.
Adaptive Multigrid Methods for the Vectorial Maxwell Eigenvalue Problem for Optical Waveguide Design
(2000)
This paper has been motivated by the need for a fast robust adaptive multigrid method to solve the vectorial Maxwell eigenvalue problem arising from the design of optical chips. Our nonlinear multigrid methods are based on a previous method for the scalar Helmholtz equation, which must be modified to cope with the null space of the Maxwell operator due to the divergence condition. We present two different approaches. First, we present a multigrid algorithm based on an edge element discretization of time-harmonic Maxwell's equations, including the divergence condition. Second, an explicit elimination of longitudinal magnetic components leads to a nodal discretization known to avoid discrete \emph{spurious modes} also and a vectorial eigenvalue problem, for which we present a multigrid solver. Numerical examples show that the edge element discretization clearly outperforms the nodal element approach.