Calculation of the electric field for lined-up spherical dielectric particles

This paper calculates the electric field in arrangements of dielectric particles. An analytical method is presented in the paper. The method repetitively inserts monopoles and multipoles until all the boundary conditions are satisfied, so that unlike the existing methods, it does not require setting up a linear equation system in the calculation. It can be applied to various types of energization such as a uniform field, spherical electrodes, or planar electrodes. The method and the BEM, a numerical method, have been utilized to investigate the effects of the particle number and particle permittivity. The authors have compared the results by the analytical method with those by the numerical method, and found that the accuracy of the numerical method greatly varies from less than 10/sup -4/% to more than 2%, depending on the condition of the calculation arrangements.