SBIR Phase II: Automating the Design of Photonic Devices using Cloud-Based Computational Electromagnetics

这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）第二阶段项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是为任何寻求尖端电磁仿真工具的研究和开发的人提供快速和经济有效的访问。这将涉及自动化最技术密集的任务，需要准确，可靠，有效地设计和原型光子和光电子器件。当前的仿真工具需要手动设置所有内容，即使对于训练有素的专家来说，这也是耗时且容易出错的。此外，光子器件的计算设计和原型设计涉及太多的试验和错误。我们的交钥匙，按需，云平台将：(1)减少50%的设计时间，(2)将模拟的单位成本降低一个数量级，以及(3)使首次用户没有事先的电磁模拟培训，能够在几周而不是几个月内启动并运行制造就绪的设计。我们先进的模拟工具将帮助企业和企业家将产品推向对国家安全、卫生和教育至关重要的各种行业的市场。易于使用和负担得起的设计工具也将减少制造和测试许多迭代的需要，从而节省环境资源。这是下一代计算机辅助设计（CAD）工具，以加速光子学的创新和发现。拟议的项目涉及开发一个交钥匙、电磁、仿真平台，该平台可自动执行涉及光子和光电子器件设计和原型设计的复杂、多步骤任务。光子学是光的科学，是电信、网络、光伏、生物医学、光刻、成像、显示和固态照明等关键技术的基础。第二阶段涉及在四个关键领域自动化部署时域有限差分（FDTD）模拟：(1)对涉及数十到数百个自由度的器件进行大规模形状优化；(2)进行敏感性分析，评估制造误差对器件性能的影响并预测制造成品率；(3)在公共云中使用按需、可扩展、高性能计算（HPC）启动仿真作业；(4)基于电子设计自动化（EDA）工具和半导体代工厂广泛支持的标准图形数据库系统（GDSII）文件格式，无缝导入和导出平面器件几何形状。这将通过结合机器学习、非线性优化和计算电磁学的进步而成为可能。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project is to provide quick and cost-effective access to anyone seeking cutting-edge, electromagnetic, simulation tools for research and development. This will involve automating the most technically intensive tasks required to accurately, reliably, and efficiently design and prototype photonic and optoelectronic devices. Current simulation tools require everything to be set up by hand which, even for trained experts, is time consuming and error prone. Also, the computational design and prototyping of photonic devices involves too much trial and error. Our turn-key, on-demand, cloud platform will: (1) reduce design time by 50%, (2) lower the unit cost of simulations by an order of magnitude, and (3) enable first-time users with no prior training in electromagnetic simulations to get up and running with manufacturing-ready designs in a matter of weeks not months. Our advanced simulation tools will facilitate enterprises and entrepreneurs with bringing products to market in a variety of industries critical to national security, health, and education. Easy-to-use and affordable design tools will also reduce the need to fabricate and test as many iterations thereby conserving environmental resources. This is the next generation of computer-aided design (CAD) tools to accelerate photonics innovation and discovery. The proposed project involves the development of a turn-key, electromagnetic, simulation platform which automates complex, multi-step tasks involved in the design and prototyping of photonic and optoelectronic devices. Photonics, the science of light, underlies critical technologies in telecommunications, networking, photovoltaics, biomedicine, photolithography, imaging, displays, and solid-state lighting. Phase II involves automating the deployment of finite difference time-domain (FDTD) simulations in four key areas: (1)large-scale shape optimization for devices involving tens to hundreds of degrees of freedom, (2) sensitivity analysis to assess the impact on device performance of manufacturing errors and predicting manufacturing yields, (3) launching simulation jobs using on-demand, scalable, high-performance computing (HPC) in the public cloud, and (4) seamlessly importing and exporting planar device geometries based on the standard Graphic Database System (GDSII) file format widely supported by electronic design automation (EDA) tools and semiconductor foundries. This will be made possible by combining advances in machine learning, nonlinear optimization, and computational electromagnetics.