Abstract

Although the Beam Propagation and Finite Element Methods (BPM & FEM) are widely used for the analysis of optical devices, they suffer from poor handling of input and output data and are often inflexible. Physical data such as the waveguide structure and associated material parameters must be transformed into a form acceptable to the solver algorithm. A similar interface is required at the other end of the process where a set of numbers must be restructured into a form which the engineer can assimilate. These interfacing functions are known as pre-processing and post-viewing (or post-processing) respectively. Following the example set by other areas of engineering, we have integrated both the FEM and BPM with user-friendly, graphics-based pre- and post-processors, and produced design tools which combine versatility with accuracy and make the numerical techniques accessible to the device engineers.

© 1989 Optical Society of America