2016 Progress In Electromagnetic Research Symposium (PIERS), Shanghai, China, 8–11 August

On the Computation of Electromagnetic Dyadic Green’s Function in

Inhomogeneous Forward and Inverse Scattering Problems
F. Han1 , N. Liu1 , H. Liu1 , and Q. H. Liu2
1
Xiamen University, China
2
Duke University, USA

Abstract— The dyadic Green’s function (DGF) method is widely used for the calculation of
electromagnetic forward and inverse scattering in unbounded media, layered media, anisotropic
media, etc. The forward scattering volume integral equations are usually solved by iteratively
updating the total electric fields inside the inversion domain. In this process, the Green’s functions
for source and field points both inside the inversion domain are used to operate on the equivalent
current in each iteration step to update the scattered fields which are also sampled inside the
inversion domain. In most previous studies, the magnetic vector potential A values are first
calculated by using the Green’s function GAJ instead of the direct computation of electric fields
E through the Green’s function GEJ . Those A values for the sample points inside the inversion
domain are later converted to electric fields E by divergence and gradient operations. The reason
for this indirect derivation is to avoid the singularity of order 1/|r − r′ |3 in the Green’s function
GEJ . In contrast, GAJ has a singularity of order 1/|r − r′ |, thus is easy to treat in the integral
when the first order basis functions, e.g., the rooftop basis functions, are used [1].
In this paper, we compare the computational efficiency and precision of the forward inhomoge-
neous object scattering problem solved by two types of Green’s functions. The singularity of
GEJ is avoided by using Discrete Dipole Approximation (DDA) [2]. Both the electric field E
and the magnetic vector potential A are expanded using rooftop basis functions. We validate
these numerical results by comparing them with a commercial software simulation results, and
find that the solved total electric fields inside the inversion domain through the Green’s function
GEJ and GAJ agree well in some situations but show large discrepancies in other situations.
Two typical computation configurations that cause these large discrepancies are long but thin
inverse domain, i.e., the discretized cell has obvious different scales in three directions, and low
operating frequency, i.e., the wavelength is much larger than the scatterer inside the inversion
domain. The reasons for these results are analyzed.

REFERENCES
1. Zwamborn, P. and P. M. van den Berg, “The three-dimensional weak form of the conjugate
gradient FFT method for solving scattering problems,” IEEE Trans. Microw. Theory Techn.,
Vol. 40, No. 9, 1757–1766, 1992.
2. Tsang, L., J. A. Kong, K. Ding, and O. O. Ao, Scattering Electromagnetic Waves Numerical
Simulations, Jonh Wiley & Sons, INC, New York, 2001.

3960