Introduction

CAMFR (CAvity Modelling FRamework) is a fast, flexible, full-vectorial Maxwell solver, that is powerful and easy to use. Although it can tackle general electromagnetic problems, its main focus is the simulation of optical devices, e.g. wavelength-scale structures (like photonic crystals), lasers (like VCSELs) and light-emitting diodes (like RCLEDs).

As CAMFR is an ongoing active research project, it contains many attractive new algorithms and techniques which are currently not yet found in commercial software, most notably in the domain of advanced boundary conditions.

Contrary to other, more traditional approaches like FDTD, CAMFR is not based on spatial discretisation or finite differences, but rather on frequency-domain eigenmode expansion techniques. Instead of specifying the fields on a discrete set of grid points in space, the fields are described as a sum of local eigenmodes in each z-invariant layer of the structure. What this means concretely is that for a large variety of structures, CAMFR can be orders of magnitude faster than these traditional methods.

CAMFR can calculate:

• the scattering matrix of a structure
• the field inside a structure, for any given excitation
• band diagrams of an infinite periodic structure
• threshold material gain and resonance wavelength of laser modes
• the response to a current source in an arbitrary cavity
• structures containing a semi-infinite repetition of a basic period

This functionality is currently available for two types of geometries:

• 2D Cartesian structures
• 3D cylindrical symmetric structures

The rest of this manual is structured as follows:

• a tutorial introducing the basic concepts of CAMFR
• a chapter containing examples which illustrate other features, like modelling more complicated optical structures (VCSEls, spontaneous emission, photonic crystals,... )
• a reference guide

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