Ansys Lumerical provides a robust solution for engineers developing solid-state optical phased arrays. These systems may prove to be important components for LiDAR systems within the next generation of autonomous vehicles.
Use Lumerical’s Multiphysics and photonic design tools to evaluate, design, and optimize all your PIC components (waveguides, grating couplers, modulators, detectors, emitters, etc). Lumerical INTERCONNECT provides circuit-level photonic simulation for ensuring system level functionality. Accounting for spatially correlated statistical variations in INTERCONNECT elements provides confidence against tolerances due to manufacturing imperfections. Integrating Ansys’ tools such SPEOS provides an even more comprehensive solution for LiDAR. Finally, advanced materials can be modelled in Lumerical and integrated within SPEOS, for example when designing a heads-up display or anti-reflective headlight coatings.
Model a phase-shifter that uses electrical or thermal tuning in an MZM configuration for beam steering in an optical phased array. Detectors can be realized using the integrated electro-optic workflows presented in the avalanche and vertical photodetector example. Laser gain calculations for edge-emitting lasers use the multi-quantum well solver MQW with inputs from our optical solvers. The traveling wave laser model TWLM in INTERCONNECT allows important performance metrics to be calculated. Our LiDAR antenna example presents an entire workflow for designing a solid-state optical phased array incorporating advanced beam patterning and electrical circuit-level considerations using Cadence design tools and MATLAB antenna toolboxes. FDTD is essential for diffractive and guided optics and it supports various raytracing optical outputs and high-performance computing in the cloud.