Stability and Numerical Dispersion Analysis of a Fourth-Order Accurate FDTD Method

In order to obtain high-order accuracy, a fourth-order accurate finite difference time-domain (FDTD) method is presented by Kyu-Pyung Hwang. Unlike conventional FDTD methods, a staggered backward differentiation scheme instead of the leapfrog scheme is used to approximate the temporal partial differential operator. However, the high order of its characteristic equation derived by the Von Neumann method makes the analysis of its numerical dispersion and stability very difficult. In automatic control theory, there are two effective methods for the stability analysis, i.e., the Routh-Hurwitz test and the Jury test. The combination of the Von Neumann method with each of the two can strictly derive the stability condition, which only makes use of the coefficients of its characteristic equation without numerically solving it. The method of analysis in this paper is also applicable in the stability and numerical analysis of other high-order accurate FDTD methods