Subpixel smoothing for conductive and dispersive media in the finite-difference time-domain method

Staircasing of media properties is one of the intrinsic problems of the finite-difference time-domain method, which reduces its accuracy. There are different approaches for solving this problem, and the most successful of them are based on correct approximation of inverse permittivity tenser (epsilon) over cap (-1) at the material interface. We report an application of this tenser method for conductive and dispersive media. For validation, comparisons with analytical solutions and various other subpixel smoothing methods are performed for the Mie scattering from a small sphere. (C) 2007 Optical Society of America.