VPIcomponentMaker™ Photonic Circuits
VPIcomponentMaker™ Photonic Circuits is an integrated design environment for active, passive and hybrid photonic integrated circuits (PICs), advanced semiconductor optical amplifier and laser applications.
VPIcomponentMaker Photonic Circuits uses unique large-signal bidirectional time-domain photonic modeling algorithms based on the transmission line model (TLM) to predict the complex nonlinear dynamics of multi-element circuits and lasers over wide optical bandwidths. It exploits the S-matrix approach for modeling passive components allowing the efficient design of large-scale passive PICs in frequency domain, and active or dynamically tunable PICs in time domain.
Libraries of laser sections, PIC elements, and other optical and electrical functions together with the large number of configurable parameters offer flexibility for the design of arbitrary device structures.
Applications
- Engineer large-scale PICs (reconfigurable cross-connects, add-drop multiplexers, multi-ring loaded MZI).
- Model tunable passive-elements (optical filter, delay, phase shifter, interleaver).
- Design microring-based photonic circuits.
- Design integrated tunable lasers, based on DBR/Active/DFB/GC/Passive sections for tuning dynamics and stability.
- Find optimum mixes of gain, loss and index coupling for power, spectral stability and feedback insensitivity in high-power lasers.
- Enhance modulation speed using MQW materials, gain coupling and optimized drive waveforms for high-speed lasers.
- Model multiple sections semiconductor lasers, and lasers with longitudinally dependent parameters (e.g., tapered lasers, FBG stabilized lasers).
- Quantify anti-reflection coating specifications by simulating the full interaction of laser and modulator.
- Simulate active, passive, ring and hybrid mode-locked lasers, to determine amplitude and timing stability of ultra-fast sources.
- Develop fast switches, optical logic, modulators, detectors, edge detectors, gain flatteners, and semiconductor amplifiers.
- Compare XPM, XGM and FWM wavelength conversion technologies for speed, noise and conversion range.
- Develop 2R and 3R regenerators and optimize their speed, transfer characteristics and induced chirp.
- Simulate full dynamics including spectrum evolution, dynamic/adiabatic/SHB chirp, turn-on jitter, intensity noise and patterning due to deep modulation.
- Predict instabilities due to physical processes, such as spatial-hole-burning in lasers.
- Extract laser parameters from simple laboratory measurements, explore design variations (adding an external cavity) based on the real device.
- Develop electro-absorption devices with frequency and voltage dependencies.
- Investigate device impact in systems with VPItransmissionMaker™Optical Systems.
- and many more. (Explore application examples in detail!)
Internal field of 5x5 MMI featuring 1x4 splitter with light launched into second port
Dynamic laser characteristics
Carrier density oscillations in MQW and SCH regions