This paper describes how the Surface Integrated Field Equations method (SIFE) is implemented to solve 3D Electromagnetic (EM) problems on substrates in which high contrast materials occur. It gives an account of the promising results that are obtained with it when compared to traditional approaches. Advantages of the method are the highly improved flexibility and accuracy for a given discretization level, at the cost of higher computational complexity.@en

This paper presents a survey and a number of experiments with the (relatively new) Integrated Field Equations method for Maxwell's equations. It starts out with a summary of the method, followed by a number of test cases in which its special properties, in particular its ability to handle high contrast using coarse grids is demonstrated. The method gives rise to a rather special set of equations and new strategies to solve these are presented as well, in particular the use of hierarchical semi-separable representations either in a direct solver or through a Krylov iteration strategy. New in the paper are the time-domain integration version of the method and the solution strategies.@en