MPB Extension Code for Loss Engineering
Information and Download

This is a free code for the computation of the ensemble averaged propagation loss in photonic crystal waveguides.

It consists of several parts. First a control file for the free MIT Photonics-Bands (MBP) package, written in scheme, to calculate the electromagnetic modes and dispersion curve of the photonic crystal waveguide as well as calculating the out-of-plane and backscattering coefficients as outlined in reference [1]. The additional files are for data analysis and consits of linux shell and Matlab scripts. All files are contained in Loss_engineering.zip

All scripts can be downloaded under the free GPL license, and no installation is required. However, an installed version of MPB (available free from: http://ab-initio.mit.edu/wiki/index.php/MPB) is required. Additionally, Matlab is required for the (optional) analysis tools.

When publishing results obtained with this software, please cite [1].

Features

• Calculation of propagation loss for different line defect waveguides

• Prebuild support for dispersion engineering, using a variety of designs [2]

• Simultaneous calculation of bandstructure, field distributions, group index curves and propagation loss possible.

• Free software under the GNU General Public License.

The calculation is time efficient and a 3D computation of the bandstructure, the group velocity curve, the electric and magnetic field distribution, the modal distribution of |Ek|2 as well as the out-of-plane and back-scattering coefficients for a slow light waveguide on a Quad core desktop (2.3GHz) over 21k-points using 16x16x30 grid is finished in approximately 3.5 hours.

Contact Information

For support using this script or suggestion for improving it please contact Daryl Beggs (beggs"at"amolf.nl) or Sebastian Schulz (sas35"at"st-andrews.ac.uk); alternatively Sebastian Schulz also follows discussions on the mpb-discuss mailing list.

For general problems or questions regarding MPB, please consult the MPB Documentation, the mpb-discuss archives or the mpb-discuss mailing list.

References

[1] L.O'Faolain et al. Optics Express 18, 27627-27638 (2010)

[2] S.A.Schulz et al. Journal of Optics 12, 104004 (2010)