Mar 12 2010
Lumerical Solutions, Inc., a leading provider of nanophotonic design software, today announced the immediate availability of MODE Solutions Release 4.0.
Release 4.0 of MODE Solutions continues to build on the flexible technology of earlier releases to model arbitrary-geometry waveguiding components of scientific and industrial interest by incorporating Conformal Mesh Technology to more accurately describe the interface between different materials. In addition to support for Windows and Linux, newly expanded operating system support for Mac OS X enables designers to use the application on their operating system of choice. In addition, Lumerical's licensing allows for the use of the application on multiple different systems without additional cost. Dockable windows, an integrated search utility linking the user to hundreds of application notes in the online knowledge base, and hierarchical layout and design parameterization features deliver greatly improved usability to the end user in MODE Solutions 4.0.
One major improvement to the algorithms underlying MODE Solutions 4.0 is proprietary Conformal Meshing Technology, which makes it possible to obtain high accuracy results without having to use a really fine spatial mesh. According to Dr. James Pond, Lumerical's CTO, "this technique can resolve interfaces to much higher precision than conventional staircase meshing without the need for an extremely fine computation grid. This makes it an ideal method to solve structures with thin layers, curved surfaces and high index contrast materials, including the surface plasmon and silicon-on-insulator waveguides being investigated for optical interconnects and other silicon photonics applications."
"MODE Solutions has played a critical role in developing our silicon photonics technology," according to Mark Webster of Pennsylvania-based Lightwire, Inc., which develops high-performance, low power silicon photonic devices on a CMOS platform for next generation optical communication devices and systems. "Its ability to specify detailed waveguide geometries, intuitive user interface and extensive scripting capabilities make challenging design projects easy. I look forward to the enhanced conformal mesh capabilities for greater accuracy and speed, together with the multi-platform support which now includes Mac OS X."
With recent versions of Apple hardware shipping with Intel Nehalem processors, excellent computing performance can be obtained by running MODE Solutions on the Mac OS X operating system. "Lumerical's MODE Solutions is renowned for its performance, reliability and ease of use which we feel makes it a perfect match with the Mac OS X platform," according to Adam Reid, Director of Product Development at Lumerical. "We are excited that the Mac OS X platform provides 64bit application support which allows MODE Solutions to harness the full potential of the Intel Nehalem processors inside the latest Mac Pro and iMac systems."
Another group that is anticipating the release of MODE Solutions is the Mackenzie Photonics Group at Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie in Brazil. "In our work developing liquid-filled photonic crystal fibers for nonlinear optics, sensing and chemical analysis applications, it is important to estimate the amount of overlapping there exists between guided light and the inserted sample and calculate such quantities as chromatic dispersion, birefringence and losses" according to Professor Christiano de Matos. "MODE's materials library allows us introduce any material we want in the simulation, and the ability to import fiber cross-sectional images makes it an easy task to get the simulation ready to run. I will appreciate the ability to increase calculation speed in MODE 4.0 with the new conformal mesh and enjoy running MODE on my MacBook."