Optical Design Tools For Photonics Engineering Education (original) (raw)

Java TM Educational Applets have demonstrated that they are powerful tools for the development of web-based educational materials and design tools because these resources can be accessed by anyone who has access to the World Wide Web (WWW) and they present the matter in dynamic visual appealing manner. In this paper, we will review a comprehensive set of photonics applets, an accompanying website and a necessary framework dealing with the development of optical design tools which are available for online teaching, experimentation and research. To date, the design tools developed cover ray tracing, Gaussian beams, polarization, gain medium and gain dynamics, modulators and optical cavities. In addition, the resources include a number of demonstration applets such as photon lifetime, wave interference, Snell's law and others. The main advantages of embedding design into optics courses, by using simulation software, are that the underlying and fundamental principles are made easy to understand by creating a platform on which students can experiment with the various facts and design new systems which may otherwise require a large and an expensive setup of laboratory equipment and at the same time making the theoretical courses more interesting to learn. Moreover, we are simultaneously attempting to develop tools that researchers can use to readily simulate complicated systems which may otherwise require hours of work.