A FDTD analysis on magnetized plasma of Epstein distribution and reflection calculation

A novel finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method with recursive relationships among operators, developed for magnetized dispersive medium, is named shift operator FDTD (SO-FDTD) method. In this paper, the dielectric property of magnetized dispersive media is written as rational polynomial function, the relationship between D and E is deduced in time-domain. The high accuracy and efficiency of this method is verified by calculating the reflection and transmission coefficient of electromagnetic waves through a collisional plasma slab. As the electron density in plasma distributes as Epstein formula, the effect of the gradient coefficient sigma and plasma thickness on the reflection coefficient is calculated. The results show that with different sigma, the distribution between the reflection coefficient and the incidence frequency is same; but there is certain difference within some specific frequency range. And there are fewer effects of different thicknesses on the reflection coefficient under different conditions. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.