Higher order finite element method solver for the analysis of microwave devices in planar technology

An electromagnetic in-house parallel solver for the analysis of microwave devices is presented in this paper. The solver makes use of a weak formulation based on double curl vector wave equation discretized with a rigorous implementation of higher-order isoparametric curl-conforming finite elements of Nedelec first family in tetrahedral and triangular prismatic shapes. A non-standard iterative domain decomposition paradigm is used providing an arbitrarily exact radiation boundary condition for the analysis of radiation problems. This methodology retains the original sparse structure of the FEM matrices while minimizing the size of the computational domain. A numerical example is presented showing the reliability and performance of the solver for microwave devices analysis.