Metallic Nanostructures [FDTD]

[Damian MarekParticipant]

Question:

I want to simulate the interaction of light and metallic nanostructures. How can I define a metal material in OptiFDTD?

[Damian MarekParticipant]

Answer:

We use Lorentz-Drude formalism to represent metals, the software comes with most useful metals already defined (gold, silver, copper etc). You can find a simple example here:

http://optiwave.com/applications/fdtd-surface-plasmon/

You can also characterize materials as Lorentz dispersive and Drude dispersive. For details on how these materials are modelled read the Material Models section in the OptiFDTD Technical Background.