Nonstandard FDTD Method for Wideband Analysis

The nonstandard (NS) FDTD algorithm can compute electromagnetic propagation with very high accuracy on a coarse grid, but only for monochromatic or narrow-band signals. We have developed a wideband (W) NS-FDTD algorithm that overcomes this limitation. In NS-FDTD special finite difference operators are used to make the numerical dispersion isotropic, which is then corrected by a frequency-dependent factor. In WNS-FDTD the numerical dispersion is modeled as frequency-dependent electrical permittivity and magnetic permeability, and the Yee algorithm is augmented by correction terms in the time domain. We demonstrate the high accuracy of WNS-FDTD in example problems, and show that it gives better results than both the standard (S) FDTD and the FDTD(2,4) algorithms.