Programs: solve Maxwell equations for waveguides

[pangsiukwong]

Hi!,

Solving Maxwell equations for waveguides is a tedious work.
Are there any programs, which can solve Maxwell equations for different kinds (geometries) of waveguides, and can give analytic solutions (i.e. give symbolic equations)? Therefore, the mathematical expressions of Ex, Ey, Ez, Hx, Hy, Hz /Ez, Er, E(angle), Hz, Hr, H(angle) can be obtained.

Patrick

 

[cesiumfrog]

At a guess: Mathematica and Maple.

 

[Claude Bile]

In terms of analytic solutions, in general, no, not unless your geometries are very simple, certainly nothing you wouldn't find in a textbook.

For waveguide analysis, you could consider using the paraxial wave equation, which is a simple integration that is relatively light in terms of computational resources. The downside is that anything that relies on phase effects like resonances or diffraction gratings won't be modeled correctly. You can also opt to use scalar approximation (for small refractive index contrasts) in favour of the more complete vector form.

RSoft and Raymax are the big commercial software developers for this kind of thing.

EDIT: I assumed by waveguides you meant optical waveguides.

Claude.

 

[ZapperZ]

In electrical engineering and accelerator physics, there are many software packages that deal with EM waves, be it standing or traveling, in various geometries. Packages such as Microwave Studio, FEMlab, etc. do solve for these complicated geometry and boundary conditions. that is how we design waveguides and RF structures.

Many of these are commercial software, or require special licenses and permission for one to use.

Zz.