Lumerical script now supports ‘tab’ character when working with strings or when writing to and reading from text files. The standard ‘/t’ notation can be used to denote a tab character in the relevant ‘write’ or ‘splitstring’ script commands.
New script operator matrix left divide ‘\’. The operation ‘A \ b’ returns the solutions to the system of linear equations ‘A * x = b’. Matrix A must be square and real, having the same number of rows as b. Matrix b can have multiple columns, which will result in returning the solutions for each row of b.
New ‘h5write’ and ‘h5writeattr’ script commands will allow users to save data in HDF5 format files. These commands paired with the pre-existing ‘h5read’ and ‘h5readattr’ commands will allow users to export and import data to and from HDF5 format files.
DEVICE Suite Enhancements
New option in MQW solver to use variational method for exciton absorption calculation. This alternative method of modeling exciton absorption, while less accurate than the pre-existing ‘direct’ method, is much faster and provides reasonable accuracy for initial design stage where users need to run several simulations to optimize their multi-quantum well stack. Once the stack is optimized, users can switch to the direct method to get more accurate results.
The ternary alloys in CHARGE, HEAT, and MQW simulations now support spatial grading of the alloy fraction allowing users to design and simulate multi-quantum well stacks with graded layers of ternary alloys in optoelectronic devices such as microLEDs.
The wizard in Virtuoso Layout for exporting designs to Lumerical Multiphysics Suite now supports the solvers in the finite element IDE, e.g., CHARGE, HEAT, FEEM, etc.
The plane wave source in FDTD now allows users to define the source angle using k-vectors. Users can also define the frequency/wavelength that is injected at exactly the injection angle defined in the source. The new option supports all three types of plane waves, Bloch/periodic, BFAST, and Diffracting.
The new script command ‘atp’ calculates the avalanche triggering probability along one electric field line. This is useful for single photon avalanche detector (SPAD) simulations to calculate the figures of merit such as the dark count rate and photon detection efficiency.
The RCWA solver can now export the “grating characterization” result to the JSON data file required by the Lumerical Sub-Wavelength Model (LSWM) in Zemax OpticStudio and Speos. This operation can be easily done using the solver object GUI or the new dedicated script command lswmexport.
SYSTEM Suite Enhancements
CML Compiler has a new menu option to ‘update data format’ for existing users who have source data in old or legacy format. The new option will automatically validate the source data and update it to the new (JSON) format. It will also update the old XML library master files to the new JSON format.
qINTERCONNECT has a new feature that allows automatic generation of an arbitrary, user specified unitary matrix in INTERCONNECT using 50:50 directional couplers and phase shifters using Clements decomposition.
The new ‘waveguide_connector’ photonic model in CML Compiler enables users to generate routing waveguide compact models that can operate with the waveguide connector PCell in Virtuoso Layout Suite, for performing layout-aware circuit simulation.