Material Detail

The PROPHET simulator is a framework to solve systems of partial differential equations (PDEs) in time and 1, 2, or 3 space dimensions. PDEs are discretized using either finite elements or finite volume methods in space and with implicit methods in time, which reduces the differential equations to a system of algebraic equations that are solved by Newton's method at each timestep. The matrix resulting from the linearization is solved by sparse iterative or direct methods. PROPHET is designed with the goals of: 1) efficiency, 2) geometric flexibility, and 3) equation extensibility. The first two characteristics distinguish PROPHET from packages such as MATLAB or Mathematica, which do not allow the use of arbitrary shapes or grids and are not tuned to solve systems with 100,000 or 1,000,000 unknowns. The third characteristic distinguishes it from application-specific simulators such as PISCES or SUPREM-4. It allows new equations to be specified by a user or model developer who may not be familiar with numerical methods.

Disciplines:

• Science and Technology  / Nanotechnology