Unconditionally-stable FDTD method based on Crank-Nicolson scheme for solving three-dimensional Maxwell equations

The approximate-factorisation-splitting (CNAFS) method as an efficient implementation of the Crank-Nicolson scheme for solving the three-dimensional Maxwell equations in the time domain, using much less CPU time and memory than a direct implementation, is presented. At each time step, the CNAFS method solves tridiagonal matrices successively instead of solving a huge sparse matrix. It is shown that CNAFS is unconditionally stable and has much smaller anisotropy than the alternating-direction implicit (ADI) method, though the numerical dispersion is the same as in the ADI method along the axes. In addition, for a given mesh density, there will be one value of the Courant number at which the CNAFS method has zero anisotropy, whereas the Crank-Nicolson scheme always has anisotropy. Analysis shows that both ADI and CNAFS have time step-size limits to avoid numerical attenuation, although both are still unconditionally stable beyond their limit.