RSoft enhances modeling tool

Fiber Optics Weekly Update, July 4, 2003

RSoft Design Group, a provider of optical design, simulation, and optimization software, announced FullWAVET 3.0, the latest release of its highly integrated CAD and simulation program for the design of complex photonic devices such as photonic crystals and ring resonators. The software employs the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method for simulation of structures that cannot be handled by the beam propagation method (BPM) used in RSoft's BeamPROPT and similar packages. FullWAVE was the first commercial tool for modeling photonic nanostructures based on FDTD.

Version 3.0 meets the increasingly complex design needs of engineers in the rapidly developing area of photonic crystal-related research and applications, as well as in new areas where the FDTD method can be feasibly applied, such as micro-diffractive devices, surface plasmons, biophotonics, and VCSEL cavity design. The latest version of FullWAVE incorporates extensive new data output features and analysis capabilities, which greatly simplify post-processing. Users can now easily measure specific field components in both the temporal and spatial domain, as well as several common electromagnetic quantities. FFT and DFT based options allow for improved frequency analysis.

Also included in the latest version are new material simulation capabilities for both dispersive and anisotropic materials--both the Drude and Lorentzian dispersion models are now available. Anisotropic support enables complex optical materials with polarization and birefringent effects to be studied.

FullWAVE 3.0 also gives engineers more flexibility in controlling the launch and input fields that are used for a simulation. Users can create multiple launch fields at arbitrary locations with different wavelengths, spatial patterns, and temporal excitations. In addition, arbitrarily (including circularly) polarized launch fields can be defined.

As the only photonic FDTD tool with a parallel computing feature, FullWAVE's clustering capability has been significantly improved in terms of simulation capability, display, and post-processing. These advancements make FullWAVE the only feasible simulator for large-scale 2D and 3D modeling. Additional performance improvements make FullWAVE the fastest, most memory-efficient tool on the market. FullWAVE provides complete options for simulation platforms on both Windows and UNIX (Linux, Solaris, and SGI) systems.

While FullWAVE can be used as a standalone solution, it can also be easily integrated with other RSoft device design tools such as BeamPROP, GratingMODT, and BandSOLVE because of the shared RSoft CAD-layout interface which allows hybrid simulation on complicated photonic devices. Combined with RSoft's BandSOLVE, for instance, FullWAVE offers a complete solution for photonic band gap (PBG) design.

Full WAVE remains the leading FDTD tool because of its superior technology and maturity compared to competing products.