Meep
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== Time-domain simulation == | == Time-domain simulation == | ||
- | A time-domain electromagnetic simulation simply takes [[w:Maxwell's equations|Maxwell's equations]] and evolves them over time within some finite computational region, essentially performing a kind of "numerical experiment." This can be used to calculate a wide variety of useful quantities, but major applications include: | + | A time-domain electromagnetic simulation simply takes [[w:Maxwell's equations|Maxwell's equations]] and evolves them over time within some finite computational region, essentially performing a kind of '''numerical experiment'''. This can be used to calculate a wide variety of useful quantities, but major applications include: |
- | * Transmission (and reflection) spectra — by Fourier-transforming the response to a short pulse, a single simulation can yield the scattering amplitudes over a wide spectrum of frequencies. | + | * '''Transmission and reflection spectra''' — by Fourier-transforming the response to a short pulse, a single simulation can yield the scattering amplitudes over a wide spectrum of frequencies. |
- | * Eigenmodes and resonant modes — by analyzing the response of the system to a short pulse, one can extract the frequencies, decay rates, and field patterns of the harmonic modes of a system (including waveguide and cavity modes, and including losses). | + | * '''Resonant modes and frequencies''' — by analyzing the response of the system to a short pulse, one can extract the frequencies, decay rates, and field patterns of the harmonic modes of a system (including waveguide and cavity modes, and including losses). |
- | * Field patterns (Green's functions) in response to an arbitrary source, most commonly a CW (fixed-ω) input. | + | * '''Field patterns''' (Green's functions) in response to an arbitrary source, most commonly a CW (fixed-ω) input. |
Using these results, one can then compute many other things, such as the local density of states (from the trace of the Green's function). Meep's scriptable interface makes it possible to combine many sorts of computations (along with multi-parameter optimization etcetera) in sequence or in parallel. | Using these results, one can then compute many other things, such as the local density of states (from the trace of the Green's function). Meep's scriptable interface makes it possible to combine many sorts of computations (along with multi-parameter optimization etcetera) in sequence or in parallel. |
Revision as of 19:52, 21 October 2005
Meep (or MEEP) is a free finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulation software developed at MIT to model electromagnetic systems. Its features include:
- Free software under the GNU GPL.
- Simulation in 1d, 2d, 3d, and cylindrical coordinates.
- Distributed memory parallelism on any system supporting the MPI standard. Portable to any Unix-like system (GNU/Linux is fine).
- Dispersive ε(ω), loss/gain, and nonlinear (Kerr) materials.
- PML absorbing boundaries and/or Bloch-periodic boundary conditions.
- Complete scriptability — either via a Scheme scripting front-end (as in libctl and MPB), or callable as a C++ library.
- Field output in the HDF5 standard scientific data format, supported by many visualization tools.
- Arbitrary material and source distributions.
- Field analyses including flux spectra, frequency extraction, and energy integrals; completely programmable.
- Conjugate-gradient linear solver to compute response to a fixed-frequency (CW) source.
Meep officially stands for MIT Electromagnetic Equation Propagation, but we also have several unofficial meanings of the acronym.
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Time-domain simulation
A time-domain electromagnetic simulation simply takes Maxwell's equations and evolves them over time within some finite computational region, essentially performing a kind of numerical experiment. This can be used to calculate a wide variety of useful quantities, but major applications include:
- Transmission and reflection spectra — by Fourier-transforming the response to a short pulse, a single simulation can yield the scattering amplitudes over a wide spectrum of frequencies.
- Resonant modes and frequencies — by analyzing the response of the system to a short pulse, one can extract the frequencies, decay rates, and field patterns of the harmonic modes of a system (including waveguide and cavity modes, and including losses).
- Field patterns (Green's functions) in response to an arbitrary source, most commonly a CW (fixed-ω) input.
Using these results, one can then compute many other things, such as the local density of states (from the trace of the Green's function). Meep's scriptable interface makes it possible to combine many sorts of computations (along with multi-parameter optimization etcetera) in sequence or in parallel.
The Meep manual gives examples of all of these kinds of computations.
Meep |
Download |
Release notes |
FAQ |
Meep manual |
Introduction |
Installation |
Tutorial |
Reference |
C++ Tutorial |
C++ Reference |
Acknowledgements |
License and Copyright |
Download
Please see the Meep Download page to get the latest version of Meep; the differences between versions are described in the Meep release notes. The installation instructions can be found in the installation section of the Meep manual.
Documentation
See the Meep manual.