A 3-D precise integration time-domain method without the restraints of the Courant-Friedrich-Levy stability condition for the numerical solution of Maxwell's equations

In this paper, a new three-dimensional time-domain method for solving vector Maxwell's equations, called the precise-integration time-domain (PITD) algorithm, is proposed in order to eliminate the Courant-Friedrich-Levy (CFL) condition restraint. The new algorithm is based on the precise-integration technique. It is shown that this method is quite stable even when the CFL condition is not satisfied. Although the memory requirement of the PITD method is much larger than that of the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method, this new algorithm is very appealing since the time step used in the simulation is no longer restricted by stability. As a result, computation speed can be improved. Therefore, if the minimum cell size in the computational domain is required to be much smaller than the wavelength, this new algorithm is more efficient than the FDTD scheme. Theoretical proof of the unconditional stability is shown and numerical results are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the method. It is found that the accuracy of the PITD is independent of the time-step size.