2000/08/09 by B. T. Draine, Draine, B. T., Piotr J. Flatau +1 · 2 citations
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Antenna and Metasurface Technologies #Astrophysics (astro-ph) #Electromagnetic Scattering and Analysis #Electromagnetic Simulation and Numerical Methods #FOS: Physical sciences #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.astro-ph/0008151
Added more information for non-Unix sites, and new target option PRISM3 (triangular prism). 42 pages, 5 figures
openalex publication_date 2000/08/09 · arxiv created 2002/10/18 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
DDSCAT.5a is a freely available software package which applies the "discrete dipole approximation" (DDA) to calculate scattering and absorption of electromagnetic waves by targets with arbitrary geometries and complex refractive index. The DDA approximates the target by an array of polarizable points. DDSCAT.5a requires that these polarizable points be located on a cubic lattice. DDSCAT.5a10 allows accurate calculations of electromagnetic scattering from targets with "size parameters" 2 pi a/lambda < 15 provided the refractive index m is not large compared to unity (|m-1| < 1). The DDSCAT package is written in Fortran and is highly portable. The program supports calculations for a variety of target geometries (e.g., ellipsoids, regular tetrahedra, rectangular solids, finite cylinders, hexagonal prisms, etc.). Target materials may be both inhomogeneous and anisotropic. It is straightforward for the user to import arbitrary target geometries into the code, and relatively straightforward to add new target generation capability to the package. DDSCAT automatically calculates total cross sections for absorption and scattering and selected elements of the Mueller scattering intensity matrix for specified orientation of the target relative to the incident wave, and for specified scattering directions. This User Guide explains how to use DDSCAT.5a10 to carry out EM scattering calculations. CPU and memory requirements are described.