EM Explorer

EM Explorer is a 3D electromagnetic (EM) solver for scattering problems of periodic structures illuminated by arbitrary incident fields including planewaves, Gaussian beams and focused Hi-NA beams. It can simulate both complex dielectric and complex magnetic materials including left-handed materials (LHM) that have a negative refractive index. EM Explorer is largely based on the same method of Finite Difference Time Domain (FDTD). Therefore it inherits most of FDTD's advantages and disadvantages. The advantages include simple & robust numerical algorithm, versatility for nearly any geometries, and good scalability of computing resources as a function of simulation volume size. The disadvantages are numerical dispersion and stability constraint due to the finite difference (FD) approximation to Maxwell's equations and explicit time marching algorithm.