UNIPIC code for simulations of high power microwave devices

• Published in: Physics of plasmas 2009-03, Vol.16 (3), p.033108-033108-10
• Main Authors: Wang, Jianguo, Zhang, Dianhui, Liu, Chunliang, Li, Yongdong, Wang, Yue, Wang, Hongguang, Qiao, Hailiang, Li, Xiaoze
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY; ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELDS; MICROWAVE EQUIPMENT; MICROWAVE RADIATION; PLASMA SIMULATION; U CODES
• ISSN: 1070-664X; 1089-7674
• DOI: 10.1063/1.3091931

In this paper, UNIPIC code, a new member in the family of fully electromagnetic particle-in-cell (PIC) codes for simulations of high power microwave (HPM) generation, is introduced. In the UNIPIC code, the electromagnetic fields are updated using the second-order, finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method, and the particles are moved using the relativistic Newton–Lorentz force equation. The convolutional perfectly matched layer method is used to truncate the open boundaries of HPM devices. To model curved surfaces and avoid the time step reduction in the conformal-path FDTD method, CP weakly conditional-stable FDTD (WCS FDTD) method which combines the WCS FDTD and CP-FDTD methods, is implemented. UNIPIC is two-and-a-half dimensional, is written in the object-oriented C++ language, and can be run on a variety of platforms including WINDOWS, LINUX, and UNIX. Users can use the graphical user’s interface to create the geometric structures of the simulated HPM devices, or input the old structures created before. Numerical experiments on some typical HPM devices by using the UNIPIC code are given. The results are compared to those obtained from some well-known PIC codes, which agree well with each other.