Demonstrating the reflection of an electromagnetic pulse from a dielectric slab using FDTD method

The FDTD method has emerged as one of the easiest and versatile computational tools for solving electromagnetic problems involving complex geometries. In most books and papers, it has become a common practice to assume a time-harmonic variation; however, there appears to be a growing interest in time-domain solutions also in the present literature. This paper discuses the reflection of an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) from a dielectric slab and presents a visual display of the same at different snapshots of time. The problem is formulated directly from Maxwell´s equations and solved via the FDTD method. With the aid of a perfectly matched layer, this technique may be extended to tackle the wave-structure interaction problems that arise in the context of EMI/EMC