OptiBPM Tutorials
VFEM Accuracy and Advantages
As optical systems move towards an integrated platform, the modelling of high refractive index contrast, sub-wavelength dimension…
Mach-Zehnder Interferometer Switch
This lesson outlines the design process of an electro-optic 2×2 switch based on integrated Mach-Zehnder interferometer. An electro-optic switch is a device used in integrated fibre optics. The device is based on Mach-Zehnder interferometer made by Titanium diffusion in Lithium Niobate substrate. The switching between the ports is achieved by an electro-optic effect within such…
Integrated Optical Circuit Simulation using OptiBPM and OptiSystem – Scattering Data Export
Scattering data is a new simulation feature in OptiBPM. OptiBPM uses scattering data when a small part of a larger photonic circuit is isolated for characterization using BPM. This smaller part has waveguides entering on the left side and exiting on the right side. The N inputs and the M outputs are assumed to have…
BPM Electro-Optic Modulator
This lesson shows how to make a 3D simulation in a material modified by the linear electro-optic effect (Pockels Effect). The waveguide design of Reference [1] is shown in Figure 1 below. In this lesson, this waveguide is created, a potential is applied to the electrodes, and the results are compared to Reference [1]. Figure…
Create a Chip-to-Fiber Butt Coupler
This lesson describes how to create a chip-to-fiber coupler. You will create a model of a simple spot-size transformer based on lateral tapering, as reported in [1]. Highly efficient chip-to-fiber coupling with large alignment tolerances is important for applications of optoelectronic integrated semiconductor devices. Such coupling requires a low-loss change of the light beam spot…
Create an MMI Star Coupler
Now that you have completed Lessons 1, 2, and 3, you are familiar with the basic procedures to create projects using OptiBPM: Creating materials Inserting waveguides and input planes Editing waveguide and input plane properties Running a simulation Viewing results and various numerical tools in OptiBPM_Analyzer Lesson 4 and all proceeding lessons provide a high-level…
Introduction
The finite difference beam propagating method (BPM) is one of the most powerful techniques to investigate linear and nonlinear lightwave propagation phenomena in axially varying waveguides such as curvilinear directional couplers, branching and combining waveguides, S-shaped bent waveguides, and tapered waveguides. BPM is also quite important for the analysis of ultrashort light pulse propagation in…
Slowly Varying Envelope Approximation
Suppose Φ is an electric or magnetic component of the optical electromagnetic field. This component is a periodic (harmonic) function of position, it changes most rapidly along the optical axis, z , and has a period that is on the order of the optical wavelength. The slowly varying approximation involves replacing the quickly varying component,…
Differential Equations of BPM
In this section we show the derivation for the differential equations found in BPM. Of course, more complete accounts of this material can be found elsewhere (see References [1] – [8]). This section exists for the convenience of the user of OptiBPM, to define important terms and illustrate the nature of the different levels of approximation.…
Semi-Vector and Scalar BPM
The above system of equations for BPM is called the Full-Vector form, as it includes both transverse components of the field. Often it is not necessary to have both field components in the simulation. If it is known that the device does not change the polarization of light, then it is sufficient to model one polarization…
