Overview on RP Photonics Software Products

The Free RP Fiber Calculator for Calculations on Passive Optical Fibers

RP Fiber Calculator is a convenient tool for calculations on optical fibers. For example, you can

• easily define refractive index profiles via a graphical interface
• get all the guided modes of the fiber calculated – with effective refractive index, effective mode area, mode profile, etc.
• find out how a Gaussian laser beam can be launched into a misaligned fiber end – get the powers launched into all the guided modes
• display the intensity or amplitude profile of the launched light evolving in the fiber, and how its far field outside the fiber looks
• calculate the coupling between different single-mode or multimode fibers (considering the influences of different fiber designs, a transverse offset of the cores and an angle offset)
• calculate the reflection at fiber ends, which may be angled

RP Fiber Calculator is a great tool for quick calculations on fibers. Although it is not as powerful and flexible as RP Fiber Power (see below), for many it will a very convenient helper in everyday work on fiber optics.

We offer the basic version of RP Fiber Calculator for free, and sell licenses for the enhanced PRO version. Although some of the above mentioned functionality is available only in the PRO version, the free version is already a really helpful tool.

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RP Fiber Power for Designing Fiber Lasers, Amplifiers and other Fiber Devices

RP Fiber Power is a powerful tool for designing passive and active fiber devices. For example, it can

• calculate the fiber modes
• numerically propagate light fields through fibers and other waveguides, which may have arbitrary index profiles, variable bend radii, taper regions, multiple cores, lossy regions, etc.
• reveal the operation details of fiber couplers, fiber interferometers, etc.
• calculate pump, signal and ASE powers in fiber amplifiers and lasers
• simulate the temporal evolution of powers in a pulsed amplifier or Q-switched laser
• do the propagation of ultrashort pulses in ultrafast amplifiers and lasers

RP Fiber Power is an important tool for understanding and optimizing performance details such as bend loss, coupling effects, amplifier gain, noise figure, feedback sensitivity and power efficiency. It can be used even for most sophisticated level schemes (e.g. in upconversion lasers) and also for bulk lasers and amplifiers. The tool is extremely flexible due to its built-in script language.

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RP Resonator for Laser Resonator Design

RP Resonator can be used for designing optical resonators, in particular laser resonators. It can not only calculate a wide range of properties of such resonators (such as the variation of beam radii, the sensitivity e.g. to thermal lensing and misalignment, dispersion from geometric effects, etc.), but also allows sophisticated optimizations.

For example, RP Resonator can be used for designing laser cavities which simultaneously meet a number of requirements, such as given mode sizes at certain positions, minimum sensitivity to thermal lensing and misalignment, minimum effect of aberrations on the beam quality, etc.

You will hardly find a similarly flexible resonator design tool on the market!

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RP ProPulse for the Simulation of Pulse Propagation

RP ProPulse can simulate the propagation of short optical pulses, for example

• in mode-locked lasers
• in synchronously pumped optical parametric oscillators
• in optical fibers

A wide variety of effects can be treated, including various kinds of optical nonlinearities, so that even extreme processes such as supercontinuum generation in photonic crystal fibers can be simulated. The very flexible user interface allows the user to quickly define the problem, generate output in the form of any kind of diagrams (including time/frequency plots and spectrograms), import or export tabulated data, do sophisticated evaluations (for example, statistical processing for extracting noise properties), etc.

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RP Coating for the Design of Multilayer Structures

RP Coating is a powerful tool for the design of complex multilayer structures, such as

• laser mirrors
• mirrors for dispersion compensation
• edge filters
• etalons
• broadband anti-reflection coatings
• thin-film polarizers
• semiconductor saturable absorbers (SESAMs) and lasers

Its flexible user interface makes it easy to define multilayer structures in various ways. A great variety of properties of the structures can be calculated, including reflection and transmission amplitudes and phases, chromatic dispersion, internal field distribution, etc. Finally, RP Coating allows for sophisticated numerical optimizations.

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RP Q-switch for Designing Q-switched Lasers

RP Q-switch can simulate the evolution of optical power and gain in Q-switched lasers (including bulk lasers and fiber lasers) and in subsequent amplifier stages. This software is controlled via forms.

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