A hybrid FDTD-transfer matrix method applicable to adiabatic photonic simulation

This paper reports on an algorithm that permits the efficient optical simulation of adiabatic photonic structures with the accuracy of FDTD¹. Using a transfer matrix method we divide the simulation window into modular blocks, which can then be cascaded yielding the final result. Sequential time-domain simulation of each block provides a linear speed-up as well as a memory advantage when compared to performing an FDTD simulation for the entire device. Furthermore, the method also allows for temporal parallelization in addition to the spatial parallelizability inherent to FDTD.