VPIphotonics releases a New Interoperable Software Platform for the Design of Photonic Devices
Optical communications, medical sensing and autonomous driving have all adopted technologies that utilize photonic devices. Fiber optic technologies are used so widespread that in some instances are now considered infrastructure, and photonic integrated circuits are expected to see accelerated growth in the coming years. To address the continued need for photonic device designs in a growing number of industries, VPIphotonics announced a new photonic device design platform, VPIdeviceDesigner.
VPIdeviceDesigner offers researchers an easy-to-use platform based on an object-oriented Python interface greatly reducing the learning curve. This ease of use is coupled with the design flexibility supporting 2D waveguide cross-sections and 3D device layouts made of real (dispersive, temperature-dependent, doped, anisotropic) optical materials. One of the key benefits of this new software platform is that it enables a complete hierarchical design workflow: targeting photonic device design, VPIdeviceDesigner complements the interoperable VPIphotonics Design Suite, an industry leading software platform for designing photonic integrated
circuits and fiber optic components as well as optical transmission systems.
“Engineers routinely face the challenge of combining various design and simulation tools in one workflow,” stated André Richter, General Manager of VPIphotonics. “With our new photonic device design platform, VPIdeviceDesigner, not only can we supply them with the tools needed to create cutting-edge devices, but we can empower them to simulate and optimize those devices for use in their target application at the component- and system-level as well.”
VPIdeviceDesigner offers a set of full-vectorial finite difference mode solvers that support widely customizable nonuniform meshing with symmetric and perfectly matched layer absorbing boundaries for simulations of guided modes in straight and bent waveguides and fibers. For simulations of photonic devices, it offers 2D and 3D implementations of the finite-difference frequency domain beam-propagation method (BPM).
