Crosslight is proud to announce a major breakthrough in VCSEL modeling. Our new vectorial microcavity mode solver greatly enhances PICS3D’s capability to model devices with oxide confinement layers and surface relief features. An updated presentation is available to demonstrate this feature.

This model should be available to customers in our official 2018 release; current PICS3D customers with an up-to-date maintenance agreement may contact their local Crosslight office to request early access to this model or arrange a demonstration version to try out this new feature.

Crosslight is pleased to announce v.2017 of the software has been finalized. This version will ship to customers in the coming weeks after further internal testing but users with an up-to-date maintenance contract my contact us for early access to this version.

Here are some of the improvements in this version:

• Vectorial electromagnetic wave mode solver for microcavity model, based on a frequency domain finite difference (FDFD) method. This model has been demonstrated for VCSELs and should enhance the functionality for complex structures with oxide confinement and surface relief features.
• Two-photon absortion model implemented for use in high-power diode lasers.
• New compact semiconductor material model to better account for experimental IQE and IV data in Diode/LED simulation. This model replaces the fully coupled non-linear Drift-Diffusion equations with a simplified linear solution of the Poisson equation, greatly speeding up the simulation and enhancing the convergence.
• Resonant cavity solar cell or PD with microcavity enhancements to the dipole moments and photon recycling.
• Additional material models to tackle divergence in thermal simulation. Especially useful for high power broad-area thermal simulation.
• Convenient external heat source definition enabled, greatly simplifying many types of thermal simulation.
• Perturbation numerical model in lateral mode eigen value problem. Improvement in speed and stability.
• Photon balance model for 3D simulations to rigourously enforce energy conservation. Available as alternative to the conventional round-trip gain solution method.
• Extra flexibility and better management of divergence stall, restart and continuation in non-linear Newton method.
• Resistive switching model suitable for RRAM application.
• Improvements in mesh generation and BPM initialization.
• Improvements in GUI, especially Semicrafter for complicated GDS input.

A new feature article on VCSEL modeling with PICS3D in Laser Focus World has been published in the July 2017 edition of Laser Focus World.

A new presentation demonstrating a Resistive Switching Memory Model has been added to our Miscellaneous Microelectronics Applications page.

This model showcases successful integration of process and device modeling, mixed-mode SPICE simulation and Monte-Carlo simulation of O₂ diffusion.

A new application note on SiC floating ring edge termination has been submitted by our collaborator, Dr. Gary Dolny. Sample input files are included for interested users.

Crosslight is pleased to announce that a free product tutorial/seminar will be held at the upcoming NUSOD 2017 conference in Copenhagen.

A new application note on SiC Junction Barrier Schottky rectifiers has been submitted by our collaborator, Dr. Gary Dolny. Results demonstrate the quality of fit produced by a properly-calibrated APSYS model.

Crosslight is pleased to announce a new and expanded version of our short course/product tutorial at the upcoming Photonics West conference in San Francisco; free registration is now open.

Crosslight staff will also be attending the conference; please stop by our booth (#2610, South Hall) to register in person or to discuss your modeling needs.

Crosslight is proud to announce that its 2016.8 version has been finalized and will soon be released to customers.

Summary of changes:

• A new graphical user interface program called SimuCenterJS has been released. Based on Javascript, this greatly improved launching pad for simulations replaces the existing SimuPics3d, SimuApsys and SimuCSuprem programs and enhances Crosslight’s capabilities to support other OS platforms. It also includes a much better Design Of Experiment platform which allows parameter optimization across multiple simulators, adding new DOE nodes and collecting/plotting in a DOE tree.
• The functionality of LASTIP for Fabry-Perot lasers has been merged into a new basic edition of PICS3D.
• Minispice capability enhanced so that a MxN resistor network can be inserted into the semiconductor simulation using an array of electrodes.
• Improvement of band alignment models.
• Improvement of 8×8 k.p model, especially for typeII IR PD application.
• Microcavity model suitable for microcavity laser diode; already demonstrated for VCSEL with surface-relief effects.
• New feature to automate the set up of the intraband quantum tunneling model. The location of tunneling regions and tunneling directions can now be totally automated.
• Implementation of a localized tunneling model (sometime referred to as unified Schottky tunneling model) using p-n carrier generation to mimic intraband tunneling.
• NEGF based quantum mechanical transport has been enhanced to transport of holes (useful for PMOS).
• Multicavity VCSEL model improved to better handle surface relief effects.
• LED device model (RCLED, LED_control and LED_simple, racetracing) with improved photorecycling and photon absorption.
• Thomson heat more accurately defined in self-heating thermal model.
• AC analysis upgraded for better modeling of traps and metal/semiconductor interfaces.
• Quantum-well trap assisted tunneling model implemented which likely to explain the thermal efficiency droop (temperature dependent) for LED.
• LO phone scattering times computed for quantum cascade lasers and QWIP; these were previously empirical fitting parameters.
• Added ability to model an individual quantum dot with direct electrical/optical pumping. Previously quantum dot states were imported into a larger-scale (wetting layer) APSYS/PICS3D model where the electrical injection was done.
• Improved interface with CSUPREM so that any impurity implanted or deposited in CSUPREM can be treated as traps in APSYS/PICS3D.
• Coupled mode model interfaced with BPM propagation to that BPM mode shape is expressed as sum of lateral modes. This is useful for tapered laser diodes such as hybrid silicon lasers.

Crosslight is proud to demonstrate the setup and simulation of a self-consistent individual quantum dot (QD) model for the semiconductor optoelectronic industry. This model has applications for LEDs, laser diodes, flat panel displays, solar cells and more …

With better control of the growth of the quantum dots, there has been an increasing demand for band structure engineering and strain/stress management of quantum dots. The new modeling capability from Crosslight aims to provide the necessary tools for the design of devices that harness the unique capabilities of QDs.

Interested users are encouraged to contact Crosslight for the new tools and a working template.