Ansys Optics

Projection headlamps, a staple in modern automotive design, offer superior illumination and styling. However, these advanced lighting systems face a significant challenge: high-intensity sun loads. Sun exposure, particularly when focused into a hot spot, can physically damage the headlamp components, often made of plastic. While plastic provides numerous advantages, including lightweight properties and cost-effectiveness, it remains susceptible to sunlight degradation. Over time, sun exposure can lead to the deterioration of plastic materials, manifesting as cracks, discoloration, and structural weakening. In extreme cases, intense sun rays can create localized hot spots that severely compromise the integrity of the headlamp. This not only affects the performance and aesthetics of the headlamp but also poses safety risks. To address this critical issue, engineers can leverage the powerful capabilities of Ansys Speos. This advanced optical simulation tool allows for the accurate prediction of sun-induced failures in projection headlamps. By simulating the effects of sunlight on headlamp materials, Ansys Speos helps engineers identify potential weak points and hot spots in the design phase. Join Ansys Lead Application Engineer Alessia Fra on July 31st for an in-depth webinar on will sun load and sunburn and how to analyze them with Ansys Speos. https://ansys.me/4c5Pi2R #SunLoad #ProjectionHeadlamp #VehicleLighting #OpticalSimulation

Ansys Optics Workshop at the Optica Advanced Photonics Congress Are you ready to elevate your photonic design skills? Join us for an in-depth workshop on the industry-standard photonic simulation workflow that seamlessly integrates with foundry requirements. 🗓️ Date: Wednesday, 31 July / 11:30 - 13:00 📍 Location: Centre des congrès de Québec / Québec City, Québec, Canada In collaboration with our foundry partner, Tower Semiconductor, we'll demonstrate how to design and optimize photonic components and circuits using a Process Design Kit (PDK). This session will showcase: 🔹 Custom component design using a foundry process file, including multiphysics simulation of a ring modulator to characterize waveguide modes, optoelectronic properties, and S-parameters of the coupling region. 🔹 Compact model generation with CML Compiler. 🔹 Photonic circuit simulation in INTERCONNECT using components from the PDK. Using a DWDM Circuit as an example, you'll see firsthand how this method can help photonic designers achieve their best designs for fabrication. This hands-on workshop welcomes both academic and commercial users to participate in the demo, but observers are also encouraged to attend. Interested participants should bring their laptops and arrive early to upload the software. We will provide a temporary software license for use during the workshop. Don't miss this opportunity to learn from the best and take your photonic design capabilities to the next level! https://ansys.me/3zXIU0s #Photonics #Simulation #FoundryIntegration #TowerSemiconductor #PDK

Ansys Optics 2024 R2: Designing for the Real World We're excited to announce the 2024 R2 release of Ansys Optics, packed with powerful enhancements to streamline workflows and improve system performance assessments across various domains. Here are the highlights: 🔄 Streamlined Data Exchange from Zemax to Speos: Seamlessly transfer data between Zemax and Speos, accurately accounting for the real-world impacts of stray light. This integration optimizes optical designs efficiently, reducing errors and improving system reliability. 🎯 Enhanced Tolerancing Capabilities: Advanced tolerancing features precisely model and simulate manufacturing errors' effects on system performance. Designs now meet stringent quality and performance standards despite real-world imperfections. 🚗 Improved Light Guide Design for Automotive Lighting Systems: Updated tools handle stringent regulatory requirements, ensuring automotive lighting systems perform effectively in diverse conditions and comply with global safety standards. 💡 Enhanced Workflows for Photonic Integrated Circuits (PICs): Improved integration with leading layout tools streamlines the PIC design process, ensuring greater accuracy, efficiency, and manufacturability. 🖥️ Enhanced Workflows for Modern Chip Design: Improved multiscale, #multiphysics simulation tool workflows enable comprehensive and accurate simulations of modern chips, meeting today's complex technological demands. The 2024 R2 release bridges the gap between theoretical design and real-world application, ensuring systems are designed, evaluated, and optimized with higher accuracy and reliability. 🔗 Learn more about the features and benefits of the R2 Release here: https://ansys.me/3ShFc8f #Ansys2024R2 #Optics #AutomotiveLighting #PICDesign #ChipDesign

Webinar Alert: Introduction to Structural, Thermal, Analysis and Results (STAR) Functional Analysis with Ansys Zemax OpticStudio! The paradigm of optical system design is evolving. Today's optical engineers must consider thermal, structural, and various physics factors in an integrated manner. To meet these advanced design needs, the Structural, Thermal, Analysis and Results (STAR) feature of Ansys Zemax OpticStudio offers a seamless way to integrate structural and thermal data, as well as refractive index data, into OpticStudio workflows. This not only saves significant time but also opens up new possibilities in system design and analysis. Join us for an insightful webinar, "Introduction to Structural, Thermal, Analysis and Results (STAR) Functional Analysis with Ansys Zemax OpticStudio", where we'll delve into the revolutionary STAR feature. This tool integrates structural, thermal, and refractive index data seamlessly into your OpticStudio workflows, saving you time and unlocking new design possibilities. In this webinar, we will introduce the following: ✔️ Introduction to Ansys Zemax OpticStudio STAR ✔️Applicable solutions ✔️ Overview of STAR feature 📅 Date: 24, July 2024 🕒 Time: 2:00 – 5:30 PM, KST 👨🏫 Speaker: Hyuntaek Choi, Ansys Korea Don't miss this opportunity to gain invaluable insights into the future of optical design. Register today! 🔗 https://ansys.me/4fgNsyW Please note: This webinar will be hosted in Korean. #OpticalDesign #AnsysZemax #Webinar #Innovation #Engineering #ThermalAnalysis #StructuralAnalysis #FutureOfDesign

So, how do you successfully design at the micron scale to deliver photonic devices? Spark Photonics has the answer. The company is a one-stop shop for scalable photonics design enabled by its in-house design expertise and photonic integrated circuit (PIC) design software. They rely on the support of the Ansys Startup Program and Ansys simulation software — not only to optimize their designs, but also as the basis for training skilled professionals to support future innovations. Spark Photonics' work is very exacting, involving numerous Ansys tools and solvers to speed through design iterations. From there, the team takes the resulting components working at very specific wavelengths or frequencies of light and adapts them to specific situations to fit customer needs. While it seems like the process of transferring components working at one frequency to work at another should be a slam dunk, it's an iterative optimization process involving a lot of design considerations. Without simulation — and support from the Ansys Startup Program — all this testing and iterating with physical prototypes would be too costly. The program offers simulation software custom-bundled at affordable pricing, which gives early to mid-stage startups like Spark Photonics access to the tools and solvers needed to solve complex engineering challenges. Spark Photonics' workflow is heavily tied to Ansys Lumerical Multiphysics #photonics component simulation software. Physical prototyping of PIC designs is expensive. Some chips, depending on the application, can cost thousands of dollars per chip to build. Lumerical Multiphysics enables the team to optimize and then test their designs virtually to significantly reduce the number of physical prototypes needed for final verification and validation. Forging a relationship with Ansys helps Spark Photonics solve complex design challenges without breaking the budget. But can it help build a workforce of qualified technical professionals specifically trained in photonics? Education and simulation are key to this effort. A pressing need for industry talent inspired Kevin McComber, CEO of Spark Photonics, to start a separate company, the Spark Photonics Foundation. With funding from the U.S. government, the 501(c)(3) nonprofit teaches K-12 and college students about concepts in STEM and advanced manufacturing using semiconductors and photonics technology through a project-based learning program called SparkAlpha. With support from Ansys, Spark Photonics has facilitated this program to reach more than 500 students across Massachusetts. Learn more about how Spark Photonics and Ansys are shaping leaders and learners in Photonics Tech! Read the full article: https://ansys.me/4fcWYU3 #SparkPhotonics #PhotonicIntegratedCircuits #AnsysStartup #LumericalMultiphysics

Tech Tip Tuesdays with Ansys Optics: Antireflective Circular Polarizers in OLED Display OLED display image quality can suffer from reflection of ambient light from the bottom metal electrodes of the display. In this example, we demonstrate how to use a circular polarizer to suppress the reflection and visualize its effect in a realistic environment by applying the physics-based Lumerical Sub-Wavelength Model to a mock-up mobile phone. The bottom metal electrode of #OLED display can be used to enhance the light extraction efficiency of the device. It also has the detrimental effect of increasing the reflection of the ambient light, resulting in a reduced contrast ratio when the display is used outdoors. In this example, we demonstrate the use of circular polarizer for minimizing the reflection of light with certain linear polarization [1]. The configuration and working principle of the circular polarizer is illustrated in Figure 1. The multi-layer OLED structure is represented by a metallic reflector. The light incident on the linear polarizer become 30 o linearly-polarized after it propagates through the half-wave plate and then is circular-polarized after passing quarter-wave plate. The reflected light would finally become orthogonally-polarized with respect to the polarization of the linear polarizer, hence blocked out by it. The reflected light can be decomposed into two parts as is shown in Figure 1. R1 represents the reflection at the air/polarizer interface and R2 is associated with the circular polarizer. In this example, we focus on how we can minimize the R2. For decomposing R1 and R2, one approach is to add an artificial layer with refractive index 1.5 as illustrated in Figure 2. The refractive index 1.5 is chosen to be close to the refractive index of the linear polarizer so that the overall reflection of the circular polarizer is almost the same with or without the artificial layer. We then convert the reflectance from STACK solver (brown arrow) to R2 (blue arrow) by script commands. The polarizer and wave plates are made of anisotropic materials, meaning their refractive indices can be different in different directions. Their rotations of the polarization/slow axis are fully considered in the Ansys STACK solver by rotating the corresponding permittivity tensors. Here are the steps: Step 1: Initial Test - Check reflectance spectrum of normal incidence Step 2: Sweep Angles – First evaluation of antireflection performance. Step 3: Lumerical STACK for Layers Without Metallic Mirror – Stack layer excluding metal. Package data through LSWM. Step 4: Speos Simulation – Examine the overall display performance by considering both display and ambient light sources Read the full article here: https://ansys.me/4cFeaj3 #AnisotropicMaterials #AntireflectiveCircularPolarizers

Unlock the potential of quantum computing and secure quantum communication with integrated photonics! The Ansys Lumerical qINTERCONNECT solver allows engineers to precisely simulate quantum PICs without needing extensive quantum mechanics expertise. Read more about the cutting-edge solution in this recent PIC magazine article by R&D engineers, Sebastian Gitt, Ruoshi Xu, and Ahsan Alam: Quantum PICs: Empowering designers with accurate simulation https://ansys.me/3SbyRen? Then experience the power of Lumerical photonics design and simulation software! Request a free trail today: https://ansys.me/3Y1SGbG #QuantumComputing #QuantumCommunication #IntegratedPhotonics #AnsysLumerical #PICMagazine

Excited to announce an upcoming presentation by Ansys Senior Application Engineer Mina Nazari during the Vision Spectra free virtual conference! Dynamic Machine Vision Camera Simulation in Operative Condition Wednesday, July 17, 2024 - 10:25 AM Machine vision camera systems are crucial for automation and quality control across industries, ensuring efficiency, consistency, and accuracy. With the increasing demand for high-quality photo performance, especially in dynamic scenarios, accurately modeling these systems is a significant challenge. Join Mina Nazari as she introduces a groundbreaking physics-based simulation framework. This framework integrates camera lens systems, 3D scene camera ray tracing, sensor functionality, and post-processing, allowing for precise simulation of real-world scenarios. Witness a practical application of a machine vision camera, showcasing the seamless integration of a camera lens design into system-level analysis, replicating realistic illumination conditions, and generating quantifiable irradiance results. Don't miss out on this innovative presentation! https://ansys.me/3Lk643A #MachineVision #CameraSimulation #Ansys #Automation #PhysicsBasedSimulation #Innovation

Ansys Optics Fundamental Fridays: Automotive Exterior Lighting Automotive exterior lighting focuses on any device around a vehicle's body that uses light, actively or passively, to assist with visibility, navigation, and communication. From headlamps to turn signals, the lights that illuminate the outside of vehicles not only help drivers see, but also help them to be seen. Exterior car lights are critical to safe vehicle operation and are strictly regulated by government standards. These standards cover different factors such as color, intensity, size, placement, and animation. In addition, lights must also meet the approval of an equally discerning audience—the designers. The creative vision of the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) brand must be achieved to deliver the right aesthetic experience to the driver. Purposes and Functions of Automotive Exterior Lighting To balance the need for regulation compliance and artistic integrity, engineers employ several different types of exterior car lights, each serving a different purpose. 🚘 Lights to see Headlamps: The primary lights for illuminating the road ahead, headlamps may use incandescent or halogen bulbs, High Intensity Discharge (HID) sources, LEDs or laser. They can function in either high beam or low beam intensities, as driving conditions and oncoming traffic dictate. Fog lights: These lights are located on the front of the vehicle and help improve visibility during adverse weather, when regular headlamps may cause glare. Backup lamps: Used to illuminate the area behind the vehicle when it travels in reverse. 🚨 Lights to be seen Turn signals: Found on the front and back of the vehicle, turn signals indicate the driver’s intention to turn or change lanes. They can also function as hazard lights, to flash a warning or communicate distress. Tail lights and stop lights: These lights are responsible for communicating with drivers to the rear. These include brake lights and reverse lights. Daytime running lights (DRL): Placed at the front of the vehicle, these lights turn on automatically to make the vehicle more visible to other drivers. License plate illumination: Lights that keep the rear license plate legible at night and in inclement weather so it can be read by authorities, pedestrians, or other drivers. Side marker lights: Important for larger vehicles, these lights found on the sides of the vehicle inform other drivers of the vehicle’s width. Decorative lighting: Lights such as underbody lights, puddle lights and logo illumination enhance the vehicle’s appearance and are helpful in illuminating the ground for safe entrance and exit from the vehicle. Official service lights: These lights distinguish vehicles that require quick identification as an authorized or emergency vehicle, such as ambulances, school buses, and police. Read the full article to learn more: https://ansys.me/3W3Zfbc #AutomotiveLighting

Don’t miss our talks during META 2024 by Ansys Application Engineer Jeongwoo Son and Lead R&D Engineer Michael Cheng! ▶️ Tuesday 16th July, 2024 / 11:50 / Toyama International Conference Center Designing a Metasurface Color Router via Photonic Inverse Design Metasurface color routers have emerged as a promising solution to address the inefficiencies associated with traditional color filters. Here, we present a metasurface color router, designed using an adjoint-based inverse design approach, with optical efficiencies of 57 %, 74 %, and 54 % for red, green, and blue channels, respectively. Presented by: Jeongwoo Son, Application Engineer at Ansys ▶️ Wednesday 17th July, 2024 / 15:30 / Toyama International Conference Center Design and simulation of a metalens-based eye-tracking system Han-Hsiang We present a computational workflow that integrates metalens design into the classical optical design process. Our approach encompasses the design of phase profiles, meta-atoms, and a full system-level simulation within a ray-tracing environment. As a practical application, design a metalens-based eye-tracking system, seamlessly embedded within a VR device Presented by: Michael Cheng Lead R&D Engineer at Ansys META 2024 | 14th Conference on Metamaterials, Photonic Crystals and Plasmonics: https://ansys.me/4f0chz0 #Meta2024 #Photonics #Optics #Metalens #Metasurface