The Challenge

Modeling light propagation in waveguides requires complex numerical simulations. Researchers needed a tool that could run these calculations in real time so they could iterate and experiment, not wait hours for results.

What I Built

FD‑BPM is a finite‑difference beam propagation simulator that pairs optimized numerical kernels with an interactive GUI. I used Numba for JIT compilation to accelerate the compute-heavy parts, NumPy and Pandas for data handling, and PySide2 with Matplotlib for visualization.

The result is a tool where researchers can configure experiments, run simulations, and see results instantly, enabling the iterative design process that's essential for research.

The Impact

The simulator has been used for optical fiber prototyping, photonic device evaluation, and as a teaching tool in photonics courses. It's available open-source on GitHub, providing a valuable resource for the research community.