Feature Request: Support for Custom Beam Profiles and Refractive Index Gradients

[wanwanhhh]

Dear Nick,

I hope this message finds you well.

I recently had the opportunity to use your nonlinear optics simulation software and found it to be an excellent tool for modeling and analysis. It offers great functionality and has been very helpful in my work.

I was wondering if you would consider adding support for media with xy non-uniform refractive index variations, such as gradient-index (GRIN) lenses. Additionally, would it be possible to include options for arbitrary incident beam profiles, such as vortex beams? These features would further enhance the versatility and applicability of the software for advanced simulations.

Thank you for your time and consideration. I truly appreciate your efforts in developing such a powerful tool and would be very interested to hear your thoughts on these suggestions.

Looking forward to your response.

Best regards,

[NickKarpowicz]

Hi! I've been thinking about doing something that would be useful for this via the FDTD mode... In principle you could do something like it now, by defining several different effective materials to describe the refractive index values at different radial positions in your GRIN lens, and solving on a custom FDTD grid.

What I've had kicking around in my head for a while is to make a FDTD mode where a custom grid is used just to describe the transverse direction, and we use a moving frame centered around the group velocity of a pulse. My motivation here is dynamics in fibers, but it would also be helpful for this case. If life gives me some free time, it is on my to-do list :)