FAST STEADY-STATE ALGORITHMS FOR THE ANALYSIS OF NONLINEAR DISPERSIVE, DISTRIBUTED PLANAR ELECTROMAGNETIC STRUCTURES, EXCITED BY PERIODIC WAVE-FORMS

We investigate the steady-state electromagnetic field scattered by a n onlinear, frequency-dispersive magnetic or dielectric structure excite d by a periodic field. For a planar structure under normal incidence, a 1D model holds, which can be simply interpreted in terms of a nonlin ear, dispersive scalar or vector transmission line. The problem is sol ved by spatially discretizing the electric and magnetic fields; then, the lumped system is analyzed by means of fast algorithms for the stea dy-state analysis of nonlinear systems under periodic excitation. A co mparative performance analysis of such algorithms (time-domain: shooti ng and extrapolation methods; frequency-domain: harmonic balance metho d) is carried out on case studies for both the dispersionless and disp ersive cases. The results obtained show that time-domain techniques co mpare favourably to frequency-domain methods.