CAD of millimeter wave Y-junction circulators with a ferrite sphere

A gradient optimization technique along with a definition of cost function is applied to the CAD of the circulator with a magnetized ferrite sphere for millimeter wave communications. A three-dimensional Finite-Difference Time-Domain (FDTD) approach for the analysis of this ferrite sphere based microstrip circulator is presented. The topology of the structure is enforced at each step of optimization and its physical dimensions are used as optimization variables. The cost function is defined using location of zeros and poles of the circulator's transmission, isolation, and reflection functions. Numerical tests show that the optimization process converges from an arbitrarily selected starting point with the new definition of the cost function.