BOA-a finite element charged particle code with adaptive, finite element meshing

Calabazas Creek Research, Inc. (CCR) and Ansoft Corporation are developing a finite element, charged particle, analysis program called Beam Optics Analysis (BOA). Finite element meshing is more efficient than finite difference meshing used by the current generation of charged particle codes. Two-dimensional, finite element solvers use triangular meshes that are not restricted in terms of size or density. The size of the mesh in any particular region is primarily determined by the local field gradients. This reduces the number of nodes by orders of magnitude, allowing modeling of problems that were previously impractical to analyze.