Learning Forum

[kchow]

"I want to simulate a large ring resonator (e.g., ~100 um radius). What would be the best approach using Lumerical?"

 

 

Simulating the whole ring with a large radius using, eg, FDTD, can be computationally intensive. There are indeed couple of ways to approach this type of application.

varFDTD

Instead of using FDTD, one way to simulate the entire ring in one simulation, is to use the varFDTD solver in MODE Solutions, there is a white paper on this topic. This 2.5D solver is able to run a simulation with 3D planar structure but just require 2D computation cost. We have an example of ring resonator using the varFDTD solver. Before you run the simulation, you could take a look at the memory report and make sure you have enough computational resources to run the simulation. Another note is that you probably want to increase the “simulation time” setting in the simulation region since light will need more time to travel for this large ring. You might need more than the default 1000fs simulation time.

However, if your are going to simulation an very large ring, this approach might not be the most efficient way.

FDTD, FDE, INTERCONNECT

When the ring resonator becomes very large, it is not efficient to run an FDTD nor varFDTD simulation. Indeed, we can split the ring into multiple component simulations and import the data to INTERCONNECT for a circuit simulation. See this example for more info.