Electromagnetic Modeling of Lossy Materials with a Potential-Based Boundary Element Method

TL;DR

This paper introduces a potential-based boundary element method for electromagnetic modeling that effectively captures lossy dielectric and conductive materials, including skin effects, across a wide frequency range.

Contribution

It develops a novel potential-based BEM formulation capable of modeling lossy materials and skin effects, extending previous methods mainly limited to perfect conductors.

Findings

Validated accuracy with canonical examples

Effectively models skin effect over broad frequencies

Handles dielectric and conductive losses accurately

Abstract

The boundary element method (BEM) enables solving three-dimensional electromagnetic problems using a two-dimensional surface mesh, making it appealing for applications ranging from electrical interconnect analysis to the design of metasurfaces. The BEM typically involves the electric and magnetic fields as unknown quantities. Formulations based on electromagnetic potentials rather than fields have garnered interest recently, for two main reasons: (a) they are inherently stable at low frequencies, unlike many field-based approaches, and (b) potentials provide a more direct interface to quantum physical phenomena. Existing potential-based formulations for electromagnetic scattering have been proposed primarily for perfect conductors. We develop a potential-based BEM formulation which can capture both dielectric and conductive losses, and accurately models the skin effect over broad ranges of frequency. The accuracy of the proposed formulation is validated through canonical and realistic numerical examples.