FDTD Solutions

Material Modeling

Outline
Dispersive materials in a time domain method Material model review
: How to choose the correct model

Anisotropic materials Advanced tips

: Getting better material fits : Understanding the mesh order

2011 Lumerical Solutions, Inc.

Dispersive materials in the time domain

The fields in FDTD are real
: exception for Bloch boundaries

Well-known frequency domain relationship

r r D ( ) = ( ) E ( )
FDTD is a time domain technique: relationship?
t r r r D(t ) = (t ) E (t ) = E (t ) (t t )dt 0
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Dispersive Materials
FDTD Solutions supports the following models
: : : : : : : : : : : Dielectric Sampled Material PEC (Perfect Electrical Conductor) Analytic (n,k) Dielectric Conductive Plasma Debye Lorentz Kerr nonlinear PDLC (Plasma Debye Lorentz Conductive)
Backwards compatibility mode only

: Sellmeier
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Dispersive Materials
Dielectric Material There is no dependence on frequency!

r ( ) = n 2 = constant
Restriction
: n >= 1

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Dispersive Materials
Sampled Material There is experimental (or theoretical, or users 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

2011 Lumerical Solutions, Inc.

Multi-coefficient model
Example GaAs, 12 coefficients
GaAs, 200-800nm

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Auto-fitting of materials
Fitting your (proprietary) data
: Example, representative data of color filters Red filter

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Auto-fitting of materials
Fitting your (proprietary) data
: Example, representative data of color filters Blue filter

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Auto-fitting of materials
Metals are not necessarily simple plasma materials
Chromium

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Some tips for material fitting

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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Auto-fitting of materials
Built in material data with auto-fitting

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Working in simulations
Simple tests: FDTD vs theory for a 50 nm thick span of Si : Analytic result for R and T can be easily calculated

2011 Lumerical Solutions, Inc.

Working in simulations
Simple tests: FDTD vs theory for a 50 nm thick span of Si
: multi-coefficient auto-fit to Si

2011 Lumerical Solutions, Inc.

Working in simulations
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

2011 Lumerical Solutions, Inc.

Working in simulations
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

2011 Lumerical Solutions, Inc.

Working in simulations
Compare Lorentz model with multi-coefficient model
Lorentz model Multi-coefficient model

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Dispersive Materials
(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

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Dispersive Materials
PEC (Perfect Electrical Conductor)

r E=0
: Equivalent to a conductor with

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Dispersive Materials
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.

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Dispersive Materials
Conductive

r ( ) = + i 0 = 2 f

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Dispersive Materials
Debye

debye c r ( ) = + ( c i ) = 2 f
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Dispersive Materials
Plasma

2 p r ( ) = (i c + ) = 2 f

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Dispersive Materials
Lorentz

lorentz 02 r ( ) = + 2 (0 2i 0 2 ) = 2 f

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Dispersive Materials
PDLC (Plasma Debye Lorentz Conductive)
: Combination of Plasma, Debye, Lorentz and Conductive models : Backwards compatibility mode only
with FDTD Solutions 5.1 and before

: you cannot create one of these materials with FDTD 6.0 or above
For more these types of complex, dispersive materials, it is best to use Sampled Materials

2011 Lumerical Solutions, Inc.

Dispersive Materials
Kerr nonlinear (instantaneous)

r r 2 r (1) ( 3) P (t ) = o + E (t ) E (t ) r r 2 r ( 3) D(t ) = o r + E (t ) E (t )

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Dispersive Materials
Sellmeier

= n 2 = const = A1 + s =
: : : :

B12 B 2 B 2 s + 22 s + 23 s 2 s C1 s C2 s C3

c 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

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Dispersive Materials
Check your material models before running simulations!

Adjust number of coefficients and tolerance if necessary

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Dispersive Materials
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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Dispersive Materials
Example Mie Scattering, gold sphere

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Dispersive Materials
Example Mie Scattering
: mesh size 1 nm

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Dispersive Materials
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 ij = 21 22 31 32

13 23 33

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Anisotropic Materials
FDTD Solutions currently supports a diagonal permittivity tensor

x = 0 0

y
0

0 0 z

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Anisotropic Materials
Set any material to anisotropic and you can enter values for each axis or import data for each axis

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Anisotropic Materials
Heres how you enter it in the index field of any object
nx 1.5 1.5 1.5 1.5+x/100 ny 1.5 1.6 1.6 1.3 nz 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.5+y/100

Index field 1.5 1.5;1.6 1.5;1.6;1.7 1.5+x/100;1.3;1.5+y/100

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Anisotropic Materials
Example: open the file anisotropy1.fsp n = 2;2;1.1 TE (Hz) TM (Ez)

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Anisotropic Materials
What kind of anisotropy is available in FDTD Solutions? How do I define anisotropic materials?

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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 imaginart 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

2011 Lumerical Solutions, Inc.

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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Questions and Answers

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Getting help
Technical Support
: Email: support@lumerical.com : 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: sales@lumerical.com Find an authorized sales representative for your region:
: www.lumerical.com and select Contact Us
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