Finite-difference and pseudospectral time-domain methods applied to backward-wave metamaterials

Backward-wave (BW) materials that have simultaneously negative real parts of their electric permittivity and magnetic permeability can support waves where phase and power propagation occur in opposite directions. These materials were predicted to have many unusual electromagnetic properties, among them amplification of the near-field of a point source, which could lead to the perfect reconstruction of the source field in an image [J. Pendry, Phys. Rev. Lett. vol. 85, pg. 3966, 2000]. Often systems containing BW materials are simulated using the finite-difference time-domain technique. We show that this technique suffers from a numerical artifact due to its staggered grid that makes its use in simulations involving BW materials problematic. The pseudospectral time-domain technique, on the other hand, uses a collocated grid and is free of this artifact. It is also shown that when modeling the dispersive BW material, the linear frequency approximation method introduces error that affects the frequency of vanishing reflection, while the auxiliary differential equation, the Z-transform, and the bilinear frequency approximation method produce vanishing reflection at the correct frequency. The case of vanishing reflection is of particular interest for field reconstruction in imaging applications.