Splitting finite difference methods on staggered grids for the three-dimensional time-dependent Maxwell equations

In this paper, we study splitting numerical methods for the three-dimensional Maxwell equations in the time domain. We propose a new kind of splitting finite-difference time-domain schemes on a staggered grid, which consists of only two stages for each time step. It is proved by the energy method that the splitting scheme is unconditionally stable and convergent for problems with perfectly conducting boundary conditions. Both numerical dispersion analysis and numerical experiments are also presented to illustrate the efficiency of the proposed schemes.