FDTD Solutions

Material Modeling
Outline

 Dispersive materials in a time domain method

 Available material models
: How to choose the correct model
 Anisotropic materials
 Tips
: Getting better material fits
: Understanding the mesh order
: Nonlinear simulations

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Dispersive materials in the time domain

 Well-known frequency domain relationship

 
D( )   ( ) E ( )
 FDTD is a time domain technique: relationship?
  t 
D(t )   (t )  E (t )   E (t ) (t  t )dt 
0

© 2012 Lumerical Solutions, Inc.

Material models

FDTD Solutions supports the following models

Common models Other linear models Nonlinear & Advanced
• Dielectric • Analytic • Chi2
• PEC (Perfect Electrical • (n,k) Dielectric • Chi2/Chi3
Conductor) • Conductive • Kerr nonlinear
• Sampled Material • Plasma • Paramagnetic
• Debye • Custom plug-in
• Lorentz
• Sellmeier These models are
implemented via the
custom material
plug-in framework.

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Material models

Dielectric Material
 There is no dependence on frequency!

 r ( )  n  constant
2

 Restriction
: n >= 1

 This model is used when selecting

“<Object defined dielectric>” for the material
property of a structure.
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Material models

PEC (Perfect Electrical Conductor)


E0

: Equivalent to a conductor with  

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Material models – Sampled material
Sampled Material
 There is experimental (or theoretical, or user’s own) data
for (n,k) as a function of wavelength
: From built-in material database
: From your own data
 FDTD Solutions automatically fits the data over the
wavelength range of your sources
: Multi-coefficient model
: You choose
• The number of coefficients
• The fit tolerance
: More coefficients takes more time and memory

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Material models – Fitting sampled data
 Example GaAs, 12 coefficients
GaAs, 200-800nm

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 Material models – Fitting sampled data
 Fitting your (proprietary) data
: Example, representative data of color filters
Red filter

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 Material models – Fitting sampled data
 Fitting your (proprietary) data
: Example, representative data of color filters
Blue filter

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 Material models – Fitting sampled data
 Metals are not necessarily simple plasma materials
Chromium

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Material models – Fitting tips
 Check the imaginary data to avoid “fake” gain
 A fixed wavelength range for fitting can be specified
 Imaginary part of permittivity can be overweighted or underweighted

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 Material models – Default materials
 Built in material data with auto-fitting

NOTE:
Default material
properties cannot
be modified (but
copies can).

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 Sampled data material – Si example
 Simple tests: FDTD vs theory for a 50 nm thick span of Si
: Analytic result for R and T can be easily calculated

© 2012 Lumerical Solutions, Inc.

 Sampled data material – Si example
 Simple tests: FDTD vs theory for a 50 nm thick span of Si
: multi-coefficient auto-fit to Si

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 Sampled data material – Si example
 Simple tests: FDTD vs theory for a 50 nm thick span of Si
: Calculate the theoretical curve from the fit
: Average difference = 0.001
: Max difference = 0.008

© 2012 Lumerical Solutions, Inc.

 Sampled data material – Si example
 Simple tests: FDTD vs theory for a 50 nm thick span of Si
: Calculate the theoretical curve from the original material data
: Average difference = 0.0023
: Max difference = 0.031
: Results come from one simulation

© 2012 Lumerical Solutions, Inc.

 Sampled data material – Si example
 Compare Lorentz model with multi-coefficient model
Lorentz model Multi-coefficient model

© 2012 Lumerical Solutions, Inc.

Material models – More linear models
(n,k) Dielectric
 FDTD Solutions chooses the simplest dispersive model that can create the
correct permittivity (real and imaginary) at the center frequency of your
simulation
: Perfect for single wavelength simulations
 At other frequencies, the value of (n,k) will be different
: In reality, physical materials with loss are also dispersive
• More accurate broadband results can be obtained using actual material data and a
Sampled Material
: Use the Materials Explorer to see the difference between target (n,k) and actual
(n,k) for broadband simulations

© 2012 Lumerical Solutions, Inc.

Material models – More linear models

Analytic
: The analytic material model allows the user to enter an equation
for the real and imaginary part of the permittivity or refractive
index which can depend on a set of variables.

: A common use example for the analytic material model is for

materials such as AlxGa1-xAs where the refractive index is a
function of x. The analytic material makes it easy to change x in
between simulations.

© 2012 Lumerical Solutions, Inc.

Material models – More linear models

Conductive Debye
  debye  c
 r ( )     i  r ( )    
 0  c  i 
  2  f   2  f

Plasma (Drude) Lorentz

 p2  lorentz  02
 r ( )      r ( )     2
 i c    0  2i 0   2 
  2  f   2  f

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Material models – More linear models
Sellmeier
B 2
B 2
B 2
  n 2  const  A1  2 1 s  2 2 s  2 3 s
s  C1 s  C2 s  C3
c
s 
fs
: fs is center frequency of the sources in your simulation
: The resulting material is not dispersive!
: Should be used for single wavelength simulations only
: Typically used in MODE Solutions to calculate fiber dispersion

© 2012 Lumerical Solutions, Inc.

Material models – Nonlinear models

Nonlinear Chi models (instantaneous)

Kerr Chi3
   2
P(t )   o     E (t )  E (t )
(1) ( 3)

 
Chi2*
 
Pi (t )   o  (1)   ( 2) Ei (t ) Ei (t )

Chi2/Chi3 *

Pi (t )   o  (1)   ( 2) Ei (t )   (3) Ei (t ) Ei (t )
2

* Implemented with material plug-in framework
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Material models – Nonlinear models

Paramagnetic *
 
D(t )   0 r E (t )
 
B(t )  0  r H (t )

Multi-level multi-electron *
Coming soon…

* Implemented with material plug-in framework

© 2012 Lumerical Solutions, Inc.
Material models – Nonlinear models
Create your own!
 Eg: Negative index, gain saturation, complex Chi

 Plugin to create your own polarization update

 It will be added to any existing material update
 Write a C++ method with inputs a, b, En-1
 Solve the following equation for n
P
aE 
n
b
0
 Trivial example
P n   0 E n
b
E 
n

a
http://docs.lumerical.com/en/fdtd/ref_matdb_user_defined_models.html
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Tips – Material Explorer
Check your material models before running simulations!
 Particularly for Sampled data materials

Adjust number of coefficients and tolerance if necessary

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Tips – Material Explorer
Beware of errors in the data, and using too many coefficients

Removing noise from data and correcting errors will improve the fit

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Sampled data – Gold Mie example
Example Mie Scattering, gold sphere
 A good test case because analytic solution exists

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Sampled data – Gold Mie example
Example Mie Scattering
: mesh size 1 nm

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Material models - Review

 What built-in materials are available?

 What material model should I use?
 How do I define my own dispersive materials?
 Cautions about divergence!!
: Some models created by the Sampled Material auto-fit will
diverge. Can be fixed by
• Reducing the “dt stability factor”
• Reducing “PML sigma” and increasing “PML Kappa” where materials
intersect the PML boundary condition, or preventing materials from
intersecting the PML
• See docs.lumerical.com/en/fdtd/user_guide_diverging_simulations.html for more details

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Anisotropic Materials

TOPICS
 Anisotropic materials
: introduction
: in FDTD Solutions
 Example

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Anisotropic Materials

 Anisotropic materials have

Di   ij E j

 Where ij is a nine element tensor

  11  12 13 
 
 ij    21  22  23 
   
 31 32 33 

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Anisotropic Materials

 Diagonal permittivity tensor

: In the Material Database, set the Anisotropy field to
Diagonal, then specify the three diagonal terms.

 x 0 0
 
  0 y 0
0  z 
 0

© 2012 Lumerical Solutions, Inc.

Anisotropic Materials

 Full permittivity tensor

: First, diagonalize the anisotropy (use the eig script command) and find
both the eigenvalues and the unitary transformation that makes the
permittivity diagonal.
: Create a new material in the Material Database using the diagonalized
permittivity tensor.
: Use the Matrix transform grid attribute feature to apply the unitary
transformation
: Example: http://docs.lumerical.com/en/fdtd/anisotropy_faraday_effect.html

 11 12 13   x 0 0

   
    21  22  23   U †  0 y 0 U
  0  z 
 31  32  33   0

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Anisotropic Materials

 Example: open the file anisotropy1.fsp

 nxx = 2, nyy=2, nzz=1
Ex Ez

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Anisotropic Materials

 What kind of anisotropy is available in FDTD

Solutions?
 How do I define anisotropic materials?

 Relevant examples
: Faraday effect
: Magneto-optical Kerr effect
: Liquid crystals

http://docs.lumerical.com/en/fdtd/anisotropy.html

© 2012 Lumerical Solutions, Inc.

 Advanced tips
 Many fits with large numbers of coefficients will
reduce numerical stability
: Most issues can be resolved by carefully controlling the fit
: Sometimes the size of dt needs to be reduced by
reducing the “dt stability factor”
• See
http://docs.lumerical.com/en/fdtd/user_guide_diverging_simulatio
ns.html for more details
 Tips
: Increase the weight of the imaginary part to get a better
fit to imag() if the absorption is critical for your
simulation
: You may want to lock material fits to a particular
wavelength range
• The fit will not change as you change the source bandwidth
: Unchecking “improve stability” may get a better fit but
there is more chance of divergence
: If you uncheck “make fit passive” plot  over the
extended view range. If imag()<0 your simulation will
likely diverge.

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Advanced tips

 Tips
: If you combine results from several different bandwidth simulations,
you may want to lock the simulation meshing algorithm to use a larger
wavelength range that encompasses all the wavelengths you want to
study
: This means that the FDTD mesh will not change as you change the
source bandwidth

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Advanced tips

 What happens when materials overlap?

 The mesh order determines the result

In this case, the order in the Objects Tree

determines the result.
This should be avoided since reordering
your objects will change the results!

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Advanced tips
 What happens at the interface where objects touch?
: Which material is used here?
 When conformal meshing is on, it does not matter!
 When conformal meshing is not used
: Set mesh order correctly for precise control Silicon

Silicon

•Set Silicon mesh order to 2

•Set Glass mesh order to 3
Glass

Glass The interface point will be

Silicon!

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Advanced tips

Nonlinear simulations can be

substantially more complicated
to setup, analyze and to ensure
convergence, compared to a
similar linear simulation.

See the following link for a number of important tips related to

setting up nonlinear simulations
http://docs.lumerical.com/en/fdtd/nonlinear_tips.html

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Questions and Answers…

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Getting help

 Technical Support
: Email: [email protected]
: Online help: docs.lumerical.com/en/fdtd/knowledge_base.html
• Many examples, user guide, full text search, getting started,
reference guide, installation manuals
: Phone: +1-604-733-9006 and press 2 for support
 Sales information: [email protected]
 Find an authorized sales representative for your
region:
: www.lumerical.com and select Contact Us

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