Particle-based simulation of charge transport in discrete-charge nano-scale systems: The electrostatic problem

Abstract

The fast and accurate computation of the electric forces that drive the motion of charged particles at the nanometer scale represents a computational challenge. For this kind of system, where the discrete nature of the charges cannot be neglected, boundary element methods (BEM) represent a better approach than finite difierences/finite elements methods. In this article, we compare two difierent BEM approaches to a canonical electrostatic problem in a three-dimensional space with inhomogeneous dielectrics, emphasizing their suitability for particle-based simulations: the iterative method proposed by Hoyles et al. and the Induced Charge Computation introduced by Boda et al. © 2012 Berti et al.