Learning Forum

[geopsar]

I'm trying to add a new material to Lumerical using Python but I'm not sure how to do this. The txt file that I have contains a 3D sampled material, so it has the wavelength and the Re and Im permittivities in x, y, z. This is what I tried to do but it doesn't work.

newmaterial = fdtd.readdata("WS2 Bulk Dielectric Constant.txt")

mymaterial = fdtd.addmaterial("3D Material data")

  fdtd.setmaterial(mymaterial,"name","WS2 (tungsten disulfide")

  fdtd.setmaterial("WS2 (tungsten disulfide)","Import data",newmaterial)

Any help would be appreciated.

[Taylor Robertson]

Could you share the traceback from this? The error message will be helpful for debugging. I suspect that the sampled data matrix may not in the correct form.
Probably this line.
mymaterial = fdtd.addmaterial("3D Material data")


It may be better pass a python dictionary = struct with the values defined in Python rather than reading into Lumerical -> Passing to Python -> and then Passing it back to Lumerical.

sampledData = [f,eps]; # collect f and eps in one matrix

# create a material
setmaterial(addmaterial("Sampled 3D data"), "name", "mymaterial");

setmaterial("mymaterial","sampled data",sampledData); # load the sampled data matrix

You could try debugging in Lumerical script workspace. If nothing else works I would suggest using fdtd.eval(" ... ") on the lsf code that works.

[geopsar]

Thank you for your reply. I've tried to change my code according to your answer and it looks something like this now
fdtd.addcircle fdtd.set("name","Nanoantenna")
fdtd.set("x",0.0)
fdtd.set("y",0.0)
fdtd.set("z",0.0)
fdtd.set("radius",R)
fdtd.set("z span",100e-9)
data = np.loadtxt('WS2 Bulk Dielectric Constant(1).txt')
lam = data[:,0]
repsx = data[:,1]
iepsx = data[:,2]
repsy = data[:,3]
iepsy = data[:,4]
repsz = data[:,5]
iepsz = data[:,6]
epsx = repsx + 1j*iepsx
epsy = repsy + 1j*iepsy
epsz = repsz + 1j*iepsz
eps = epsx + epsy + epsz
sampledData = [lam,eps]
fdtd.setmaterial(fdtd.addmaterial("Sampled 3D data"),"name","WS2 (tungsten disulfide)")
fdtd.setmaterial("WS2 (tungsten disulfide)","Sampled 3D data",sampledData)
but I still get the following error in Python
LumApiError: "argument list for setmaterial command is incorrect - setmaterial arguments were converted to ('str, 'str, cell array)"
which corresponds to this warning on Lumerical
Warning: prompt line 3: The material type 'sampled 3d data' is now called 'Sampled 3D data'.
I'm not sure why I'm getting such an error since I am using 'Sampled 3D data.'

[Kyle]

As indicated by the LumApiError message, your sampledData Python list is being converted to a cell array. However, the Lumerical command requires a matrix, not a cell array. Numpy arrays are converted to Lumerical matrices, so the sampledData list needs to be converted to a Numpy array before it is used in the setmaterial method.
The Python data types and their Lumerical equivalents are given on this page:

[Saeid AsgarnezhadZorgabad]

Sorry but I don't understand what you are saying Kyle.

Let me show you my code. First I have made a matrix:

M_data=np.array([f,eps])

Then I set the name as:

Mat_Name='Quantum dot'

Then I have added these lines:

temp=fdtd.addmaterial('Sampled data')      

fdtd.setmaterial(temp,'name',Mat_Name)
fdtd.setmaterial(Mat_Name,'max coefficients',2)
fdtd.setmaterial(Mat_Name,'sampled data',M_data)

and I get this error: "the number of columns for the data in 'sampled 3d data' should be either 2 or 4"

Indeed the shape of M_data is (2,3000) and has 2 columns. So I am not sure what the error is. Can you be more specific and kindly correct my code instead of "explaining"?

 

 

 

[mustafa]

On a related note, would anyone know why changing the material color cannot be done from the python API? I'm getting an error for the following command:

fdtd.setmaterial(matname, "color",[0.5, 0.5, 0.5, 1])