An assessment of four linear-system iterative solvers is carried out through the simulation of a key 2D photonic crystal structure. Among these solvers, the biconjugate gradient stabilized (BCGS) in conjunction with the incomplete LU (ILU) decomposition, shows the best performance and can be regarded as a promising candidate for large-scale computation. In addition, the iterative solver with the best performance is applied to analysis of the directional optical coupler and transverse anisotropic waveguide. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.