Full-Wave Model of Frequency-Dispersive Media With Debye Dispersion Relation by Circuit-Oriented FEM

Dispersive materials play an important role in a wide variety of applications (e.g., waveguides, antenna structures, integrated circuits, bioelectromagnetic applications). In this paper, a full-wave finite-element method (FEM-SPICE) technique for modeling dispersive materials is proposed. A finite-element formulation employing Whitney elements capable of analyzing electromagnetic geometries with dispersive media is described, and a Norton equivalent network is developed for each element. The overall network can be analyzed using a circuit simulator based on SPICE, and is suitable for both frequency- and time-domain analysis. This approach exploits the flexibility of finite-element mesh generation and computational efficiency of modern circuit simulators. Simple test configurations are analyzed to validate the proposed formulation.