DOEMaster 2022a Release Notes

4/10/2022

• New Features:
• After years research and development, LightSoft is proudly announcing world first commercially available CGH null lens encoding software, CGH Wizard feature, available in DOEMaster 2022a. CGH Wizard features LightSoft’s Proprietary CGH encoding algorithm. With the help of CGH Wizard, the cost of CGH null lens can be driven down to a few hundred dollars from current price of thousands dollars. This cost reduction will greatly expand the application of CGH null lens in optical metrology and testing industry.
• CGH Wizard’s encoding algorithm is adaptive with respect to the local fringe period of the CGH to achieve the optimum encoding speed. It can automatically change the encoding step/speed based on local fringe period of the CGH. The algorithm is also suitable for any size of the CGH, no additional field stitching algorithm/software is needed. The size of the CGH is only limited to the memory size of the computer on which the CGH Wizard is running on. The encoding engine is coded in Fortran for fastest speed and fully parallelized with OpenMP to utilize all CPU cores of the computer. Most CGHs can be encoded within an hour. Another salient feature of CGH Wizard is that the generated GDS file size is about an order smaller compared to that of the GDS files generated by traditional encoding algorithms available in literature. This will save tremendous mask writing machine time and therefore could significantly cut down the writing cost of the CGH mask.

DOEMaster 2021a Release Notes

3/10/2021

• Upgrade to Python 3.8.5 and Pyside2 for QT GUI framework

DOEMaster 2019a Release Notes:

5/25/2019

• New Features:
1. Import grayscale images as initial Phase distribution
2. Export initial phase distribution as grayscale images

• Major improved Features:
1. Substantially improved the smoothness of the DOE phase profile for binary phase DOEs.

• Bug Fixes:
1. Fix a bug in Exporting Zemax grid phase file format.

DOEMaster® Version 2018B Release Notes:

5/5/2018
  • New major features:
  1. Add support for multi-mode laser or multiple coherent source and multiple plane wave components as source.
  2. Add support for diverging laser mode as source, such as laser diode.
  • Major improved features:
  1. Allow using degree as unit of target aimed field for paraxial propagators.
  2. Allow manually set DOE pixel size for non-paraxial propagator.
  3. Allow odd number of phase levels。
  4.  Add DOE amplitude apodization for easy demonstration of double slit interference, diffraction of gratings. It’s mainly for educational purpose.
  5.  Add etch depth calculation for specified substrate material version of DOEMaster manual is added for Chinese customers.
  • Minor Improvements

    1. Add convenient features to aid setting up customized order control for beam splitting design.

  • Bug fixes

DOEMaster® Version 2018a Release Notes:

1/26/2018
  • New major features:
  1.  Further enhanced the quantization algorithm used for quantized DOE profile designs, especially for binary DOE profiles. With the new feature of “Binarize for maximum diffraction efficiency”, the diffraction efficiency of the binary Phase DOE can be very close to theoretical limit of 81%.
  2. Improved the wide angle beam splitter design algorithm.
  3. Added individual order control for beam splitter designs. With this new feature, it is easy to design spot arrays in which any spot can be turned off. It is even possible to accurately control the relative intensity of each spot.
  4. Added switchable English-Chinese Interface.
  • Major improved features:

1. A Chinese version of DOEMaster manual is added for Chinese customers.

  • Bug fixes

DOEMaster® Version 2017c Release Notes

11/20/2017
  • New major features:
    1. Add Zernike polynomial based phase apodization for initial and optimized DOE profile for compensation of aberrations of real optical system used in SLM applications or any application that employs continuous DOE profile.
  • Major improved features:
    1. Re-implemented the DOE quantization algorithm so that the performance of the quantized DOE is greatly improved.
  • Bug fixes

DOEMaster® Version 2017b Release Notes

08/15/2017
  • New major features:
    1. Non-paraxial wide angle DOE design feature. This feature is capable of design DOE’s with full diffraction angles up to 120 degrees.
    2. Beam splitter designs. Now DOEMaster can design beam splitters and beam fanners, both in scalar paraxial and non-paraxial diffraction theory.
    3. Parallelized IFTA algorithm with OpenMP. Now DOEMaster can design DOE’s with up to 10000×10000 sampling pixels with any number of CPUs on the running machine.
    4. Added an Analyze mode for analyzing the performance of the designed DOE.
  • Major improved features:
    1. Re-implemented the model tree to reflect the new workflow in designing DOE’s.
    2. Greatly improved the field viewer:
      1. Added scatter plot type for beam splitter design
      2. Added Normalization option to normalize the field
      3. Improved the sharpness of the image plots
      4. Improved the quality of the surface plots
      5. Added color for the sampling plane information.
  • Minor new features:
    1. Show CPU and memory usage on status bar
    2. Add a tutorial in Help menu
    3. Add two simple educational samples cases
  • Bug fixes

DOEMaster® Version 2017a Release Notes

02/01/2017
  • First release of DOEMaster.
  • Implemented the paraxial DOE design feature.
  • Implemented the field Viewer to view different field distributions on DOE and target plane.
  • Released to small number of potential customers for evaluation.