Uniaxial approach to time-domain computations using electromagnetic potentials

A new approach to transient electromagnetic (EM) analysis in terms of wave potentials is presented. It is based on the EM field and source scalarization in a non-uniform medium. The algorithm computes two scalar wave functions of space-time, which constitute a complete 3-D solution. They represent the time-dependent values of two collinear (electric and magnetic) vector potentials of known fixed direction throughout the computational volume. Auxiliary source functions are also computed but only at the location of material non-uniformities. A finite-difference implementation in the case of metallic boundaries and inclusions is considered. The algorithm offers approximately 30% reduction of the computation time and memory requirements in comparison with the FDTD method based on the Maxwell curl equations. The technique is illustrated with a number of waveguide examples. Copyright (C) 2004 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.