Parallel Implementation of the Finite-Difference Time-Domain Method on Cluster Environment

As small scale clusters are becoming the preferred solution for the high-performance computing needs, researchers are interested in simulations using parallel environment. We implemented the parallel finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method using the parallel environment based on clusters. Especially, this implementation targets the simulation of a plasmon waveguide which attracts interest as one of the candidates for a photonic integrated circuit. For this purpose, the Yee algorithm is modified to treat a dispersive material and implemented based on the three dimensional special parallelism. This implementation had been validated through various test simulations, and we checked the performance enhancement by the parallel environment. The parallel implementation of the FDTD developed through this work produced the same results as the previous works and shows the calculation speed increase proportional to the number of calculation nodes. Finally, we describe the limitation of this implementation and the possible solutions.