Meep

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-	'''Meep''' (or '''MEEP''') is a free finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulation software developed at MIT. It is rich in functionality with support for cartesian and cylindrical co-ordinate systems, non-linearities, periodic boundary conditions, field visualization and a variety of source excitations. The code is paralellizable with LAM-MPI.	+	'''Meep''' (or '''MEEP''') is a free finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulation software developed at MIT to model electromagnetic systems. Its features include:
-	MEEP is based on the discretization of the standard Yee cell with second order accurate centered finite differences of Maxwell's equations. Materials with anisotropy, gain and dispersive properties are supported. Currently, the front end is based on a C++ control file with a libctl front end near completion.	+	* Free software under the [[w:GNU General Public License|GNU GPL]].
		+	* Simulation in 1d, 2d, 3d, and cylindrical coordinates.
		+	* Distributed memory parallelism on any system supporting the [[w:MPI|MPI]] standard. Portable to any Unix-like system ([[w:Linux|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 [[w:Scheme programming language|Scheme]] scripting front-end (as in [[libctl]] and [[MPB]]), or callable as a C++ library.
		+	* Field output in the [[w: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 ([[w:Continuous wave|CW]]) source.
		+
		+	''Meep'' officially stands for ''MIT Electromagnetic Equation Propagation'', but we also have [[Meep acronym expansions|several unofficial meanings]] of the acronym.
		+
		+	== 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:
		+
		+	* Transmission (and reflection) spectra — by Fourier-transforming the response to a short pulse, a single simulation can yield the response 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).
		+	* 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.
		+
		+	== Acknowledgements ==
		+
		+	== Contact Information ==

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Revision as of 18:21, 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 w: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.

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 response 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).
• 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.

Acknowledgements

Contact Information