Reply To: Regarding importing an intensity beam profile in Ansys Lumerical FDTD

[Greg Baethge]

When creating an import source, you need to specify a spatial field profile. Depending on the propagation axis, the field profile (that is 2D) will be defined on the xy, xz or yz plane. In a rectilinear dataset, x,y,z correspond to the coordinate vectors for x, y and z where the data is recorded. For a source defined in xy plane, x and y will be vectors and z a single value.
In your case, you don't really need a import source, actually. You can use the source the most relevant for your application (plane wave or Gaussian beam, for instance), set the bandwidth to match the spectral data you have. Then you can apply this spectrum in a post-processing step. SInce FDTD will give the impulse response of the system, you can simply apply the spectrum to the results (we use this to apply the solar spectrum in solar cell simulations).
I hope this will help.