PPP method for analysis of electromagnetic fields in inhomogeneous media

Abstract

A perturbation/iterative method (the PPP method) is proposed for the analysis of electromagnetic fields in inhomogeneous media. It consists of increasing the values of the parameters the medium at all points in small increments, starting from their vacuum values, and computing the induced sources by means of the total field (the incident field, plus that of the induced sources as obtained in the preceding step). Thus, in all the perturbation/iterative steps the total excitation field is known, and therefore the solution of any problem using the method is based solely on the expression for the field of an elemental source in a vacuum. The method appears to be very versatile, conceptually the simplest possible and remarkably rapid. It also has extremely low memory requirements even for very large problems, provided that computing time is not critical. In addition, it can be combined very efficiently with other available methods, e.g. with the method of moments for the analysis of conducting antennas in a vacuum to analyse such antennas in the presence of arbitrary dielectric or magnetic bodies.