FDTD on Face-Centered Cubic (FCC) Grids for Maxwell's Equations

The standard FDTD method for Maxwell's equations is reformulated on face-centered cubic (FCC) grids as an alternative to the standard Cartesian (Yee) grid. Dispersion and stability for the formulation are also presented, and a comparison is made with the standard FDTD formulation using the metric of equal volume density of gridpoints. Although the new formulation has four times as many lattice points per unit voxel in comparison with the standard formulation, the new formulation shows much better grid isotropy. Furthermore, the new formulation has a stability criterion that is approximately 1.4 times more relaxed than that of the standard formulation.