VPIcomponentMaker™ Active Photonics
VPIcomponentMaker™ Active Photonics is an integrated design environment for active photonic circuits, advanced semiconductor optical amplifier and laser applications.
VPIcomponentMaker Active Photonics 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.
The modular library of optical and electrical functions together with the large number of configurable parameters offers flexibility for the design of arbitrary device structures.
Applications
- 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.
- and many more. (Explore application examples in detail!)
Monitoring of temporal oscillations of the carrier density in MQW and SCH regions of a laser.
Time-domain models allow the analysis dynamic laser characteristics such as instantaneous frequency and power.