An explicit fourth-order staggered finite-difference time-domain method for Maxwell's equations (Q1860399)

The authors present a new finite-difference time-domain method which is fourth-order accurate both in time and space. The computational efficiency of the method is essentially improved compared to the original FD-TD method, but retains much of its simplicity. It can be easily adapted to cope with material discontinuities and different boundary conditions. Several numerical experiments illustrate the efficiency of the method, they indicate that dispersive errors can be effectively reduced.