  In this paper, we develop Hamiltonian particle-in-cell methods for
Vlasov-Maxwell equations by applying conforming finite element methods in space
and splitting methods in time. For the spatial discretisation, the criteria for
choosing finite element spaces are presented such that the semi-discrete system
possesses a discrete non-canonical Poisson structure. We apply a Hamiltonian
splitting method to the semi-discrete system in time, then the resulting
algorithm is Poisson preserving and explicit. The conservative properties of
the algorithm guarantee the efficient and accurate numerical simulation of the
Vlasov-Maxwell equations over long-time.
