SO-FDTD Analysis of the Plasma Reflectance of Epstein Distribution

The analysis of electromagnetic propagation in a dispersive medium is complicated in the time-domain because its dielectric constant is frequency-dependent. In this paper, the dielectric constant of the dispersive medium is written as a rational polynomial function, and the relationship between D and E is derived in the time-domain. It is referred to as the shift operator finite-different time-domain (SO-FDTD) method. Compared to an analytical solution and a piecewise linear current density recursive convolution (PLJERC) solution, the high accuracy and efficiency of this method is verified by calculating the reflectance of the electromagnetic wave through a cold plasma slab. As the electron density in plasma is distributed as the Epstein formula, the effect of distribution grads and electron collision frequency on the reflectance is calculated by using the SO-FDTD method. The result shows that the increase in the distribution grads coefficient affects the reflectance sharply. When it comes to a smaller distribution grads coefficient, the increase of the collision frequency showed a significant effect on the reflectance, but on the contrary, there is actually less and less effect till it disappears