Abstract: An improvement of the vector basis functions of quadratic hexahedral edge elements is presented.After a brief review of the original hexahedral edge elements^[4],the procedure for the construction of the new edge basis functions is proposed.A better orthogonality is gained for the new basis functions,which facilitates the enforcement of Dirichlet boundary condition in the Finite Element Method (FEM).The new hexahedral edge elements is used to solve 3D scattering problem with Perfectly Matched Layer (PML).The related numerical results are carried out to testify both effectiveness and accuracy.

Key words: edge elements, finite element method, electromagnetic scattering, PML