VPIphotonics has released VPIcomponentMaker Photonic Circuits – a software tool for designing, analyzing and optimising large-scale photonic integrated circuits (PICs). It can be applied to a variety of active and passive devices and PIC design tasks. Highly integrated PICs are constructed from fundamental photonic elements, such as active and passive waveguides, directional couplers, branches, MMIs, star couplers and micro-ring resonators.
VPIcomponentMaker Photonic Circuits supports indium-phosphate and silicon photonics applications including: semiconductor lasers and LEDs (e.g., tunable, injection-locked and unstable); active PICs, such as switches, modulators and detectors; passive PICs, such as arrayed waveguides, MMI-based (de)multiplexer, delay lines and filters; and device characteristics on systems level (e.g., impact of noise, chirp and bandwidth).
VPIcomponentMaker Photonic Circuits combines and extends VPIphotonics’ active-device modelling capabilities with PIC elements for complete subsystem design and support of TM and TE guided modes. Simulation of the full longitudinal and spectral dynamics of lasers and semiconductor optical amplifiers with detailed control over device geometry and material characteristics insures both the accuracy and flexibility to model complex device structures.
Furthermore, the newly introduced S-matrix approach for modelling passive components enables the efficient design of large-scale passive PICs in frequencydomain and active or dynamically tunable PICs in time domain. Analytical models (based on coupled-mode theory, self-imaging MMI model, Fourier optics star coupler model) yield fast PIC design and optimisation of design tolerances.
Models incorporating measured characteristics provide realistic simulations of PICs with highly customised elements. Flexible characterization of TE and TM guided modes allows investigation of birefringence, polarisation coupling and dispersion effects.
Detailed component modelling in VPIcomponentMaker Photonic Circuits can be fully integrated with VPIphotonics’ optical systems-level design environment VPItransmissionMaker Optical Systems.