Finite difference time domain solution of electromagnetic scattering on the hypercube

Abstract

Electromagnetic fields interacting with a dielectric or conducting structure produce scattered electromagnetic fields. To model the fields produced by complicated, volumetric structures, the finite difference time domain (FDTD) method employs an iterative solution to Maxwell's time dependent curl equations. Implementations of the FDTD method intensively use memory and perform numerous calculations per time step iteration. We implemented an FDTD code on the California Institute of Technology/Jet Propulsion Laboratory Mark III Hypercube. This code allows us to solve problems requiring as many as 2,048,000 unit cells on a 32 node Hypercube. For smaller problems, the code produces solutions in a fraction of the time to solve the same problems on sequential computers.