DDA-based Inverse Design of Nanophotonic Metasurfaces: a Benchmarking of Optimization Techniques

This work is an in-depth assessment of the optimization techniques used for metasurface inverse design in the field of nanophotonics. Each technique is detailed and implemented, comparing and contrasting the results produced by the numerical methods. A unique DDA solver is used to speed up the computation of the electromagnetic fields, which are used to determine the quality of the proposed designs. Fabrication limitations are also taken into consideration, and various filters were used to introduce a minimum length-scale to the designs. Finally, multi-band optimization was implemented in order to prevent single-wavelength peaks, which are unrealizable in practice.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science

Level thesis:degree_level

Masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Applied Physics/Physics

Grantor

Rice University

Year dc:date.issued

2024

Author dc:creator

• Lakhanpal, Kunal

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Nordlander, Peter

• inverse design
• nanophotonics
• metasurfaces
• metastructures
• dielectrics
• photonic modes
• optimization
• DDA
• numerical
• gradient descent
• topology optimization
• genetic algorithm
• penalty
• computation
• electromagnetic fields
• discretization
• objective function
• adjoint
• GPU
• CUDA
• Python
• C++

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright is held by the author, unless otherwise indicated. Permission to reuse, publish, or reproduce the work beyond the bounds of fair use or other exemptions to copyright law must be obtained from the copyright holder.

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1911/118185

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:repository.rice.edu:1911/118185