1 Introduction

This manual documents version 2.0.0 of Nero2d, a two-and-a-half-dimensional (2.5D), full-wave, scalable parallel electromagnetic solver for scattering at extremely large dielectric and perfectly conducting objects. Its features include,

• A portable graphical user interface (GUI) called wxGBTool to specify geometry, illumination and required output.
• Support for TM/TE illumination: plane waves, gaussian bundles and line sources.
• Support for any number of two dimensional dielectric and/or perfectly conducting objects (PEC) of arbitrary shape. These objects can be embedded into other dielectric objects, even recursively. A dielectric object is required to be homogeneous and characterized by its complex permittivity and permeability.
• As output, Nero2d can calculate the electric and magnetic field components in a given point, in specified points along a line or a circle, or in a rectangle of points which can be used to create bitmaps. Nero2d can also write the Method of Moments system matrices and right hand side and/or solution vectors.
• Nero2d uses a very powerful Multilevel Fast Multipole Algorithm (MLFMA) together with an iterative solver to calculate the solution iteratively. The MLFMA allows for a memory and time complexity of O(N log N).
• To allow for the simulation of very large structures, Nero2d can make use of an asynchronous, scalable parallel MLFMA with MPI communication. It can easily simulate problems of several hundreds of thousands of wavelengths in diameter, accounting for millions of unknowns, provided that a sufficiently large parallel machine is used.

We assume herein that you are familiar with electromagnetic scattering theory and that you have a basic knowledge of the Method of Moments and the MLFMA. Please note that our software which might still contain bugs. Also note that we do not take any responsibility for the correctness of our results and that we cannot held responsible for any damage our software might inflict on your system. Rest assured however, that we would be surprised that this would ever happen.

The Nero2d software project started in 2003 as a Master Thesis by Ignace Bogaert and Jurgen De Zaeytijd. As from 2004, this work was continued by Jan Fostier, while working towards his Master Thesis and Ph.D.