Abstract We present an alternative finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) scheme that utilizes a body-centered tetragonal (BCT) grid, offering spatially collocated field components and significantly improving computational performance. The update equations for the BCT-FDTD maintain the simplicity and intuitiveness characteristic of the standard FDTD based on the Yee grid, with the key distinction being that the spatial derivative in one direction requires the use of four nearest neighbors instead of two. Our analyses of dispersion and stability reveal that the BCT-FDTD achieves a relaxed stability criterion, along with reduced anisotropy and lower phase velocity errors. Numerical tests indicate that, under equal sampling density conditions, the BCT-FDTD exhibits comparable memory usage and computation time to the standard FDTD. Moreover, our analysis establishes that when using conditions that ensure a phase velocity error of less than 1%, the BCT-FDTD requires approximately 5× less memory and achieves approximately 10× faster computation compared to standard FDTD. This improvement is expected to be even more pronounced in simulations involving anisotropic materials, thanks to the advantages provided by spatially collocated field components. Overall, we believe that the BCT-FDTD serves as a compelling alternative to the standard FDTD.
Read full abstract