A fourth order scheme for the FDTD algorithm applied to Maxwell's equations

Abstract

A solution based on the fourth-order scheme is developed which reduces the drawbacks to the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) approach for solving Maxwell's equations. The 4*4 scheme is shown to have a heavier formulation than the 2*2 scheme, but it gives approximately the same results with a mesh twice as coarse as that of the latter. In 3-D, the saving in memory storage is about a factor of eight, and the number of operations is increased by four. With the same accuracy the 4*4 scheme is therefore faster than the 2*2.