Application Gallery

3D Cubic Lattice is a special case of 3D Rectangular Lattice. The lattice spacing of this type of photonic crystal is equal in three axes in space.

In this case, a 2D triangular-lattice PC formed by air cylinders arranged in parallel in the medium is constructed, and its bandstructure is calculated.

Photonic crystals, as a dielectric structure with periodic changes in dielectric constant, can prevent light of a specific frequency from propagating internally, forming a photonic band gap.

In nonlinear optics, the interaction between light and media produces nonlinear polarization. Second-order nonlinear effects are widely used in optical frequency doubling, frequency mixing, and modulation, which play an important role in lasers, frequency conversion and other devices. This example will simulate the generation of second harmonic using second-order nonlinear materials.

The Multi-mode Interference (MMI) coupler is composed of three parts (input waveguide, output waveguide, and multimode interference region). When the optical field is injected into the multimode interference region through the input waveguide, the interference between multiple modes produces a self-imaging effect. This effect causes periodic generations of one or more images of the input field along the propagation direction of the guided wave. As a result, the MMI can achieve optical wavelength division multiplexing/demultiplexing, power division, polarizing splitter and other functions by this effect.

A Bragg grating is an optical device in which there is a periodic variation in the effective refractive index of the structure. The waveguide Bragg grating is a type of one-dimensional photonic crystal structure that enables wavelength selection through periodic modulation of the refractive index. The impact of the geometrical parameters of the sidewall corrugation, such as depth or misalignment, on the performance of Bragg gratings can be analyzed in silicon waveguide Bragg gratings, as demonstrated by Wang et al.

The power splitter based on Y branch distributes optical power to two or more output devices in a certain ratio. In this example, we use SimWorks Finite Difference Solutions to simulate the insertion loss, transmitted power and S-parameters of a symmetric 50/50 Y-branch splitter.

Solar cell is a device that converts solar energy into electricity. When sunlight irradiates a semiconductor material with photovoltaic effect, electron-hole pairs (photogenerated carriers) are generated. An electric current can be produced by inducing electrodes at both ends of the solar cell. In this example, we simulate a planar silicon solar cell by SimWorks Finite Difference Solutions to calculate the absorption of solar energy (300-1100nm) and further to compute the photon generation rate and the corresponding photocurrent.

The self-collimation(SC) effect of photonic crystals(PCs) achieves collimated radiation with almost no diffraction effect when the incident light propagates along a particular direction of the crystal. Line defects in 2D PCs cause bending and splitting of the SC beam. In this example, the effect of "optical switching" can be achieved by altering the line defects (radius of the dielectric rod) in the photonic crystal.

Bragg fiber is a type of air-core fiber that allows light to propagate in the air core, which avoids problems caused by intrinsic material limitation. In this example, we use SimWorks Finite Difference Solutions to calculate the modes of the PC Bragg fiber described by Vienne et al and further compare the results with those from Uranus et al.