“pyGDM” - new functionalities and major improvements to the python toolkit for nano-optics full-field simulations

In the course of this re-write, the toolkit's internal architecture has been completely redesigned to offer a much wider range of possibilities to the user such as the choice of the dyadic Green's functions describing the environment. A new class of dyads allows to perform 2D simulations of infinitely long nanostructures. While the Green's dyads in pyGDM are based on a quasistatic description for interfaces, we also provide as new external python package “pyGDM2_retard” a module with retarded Green's tensors for an environment with two interfaces.

We have furthermore added functionalities for simulations using fast-electron excitation, namely electron energy loss spectroscopy and cathodoluminescence. Along with several further new tools and improvements, the update includes also the possibility to calculate the magnetic field and the magnetic LDOS inside nanostructures, field-gradients in- and outside a nanoparticle, optical forces or the chirality of nearfields.

All new functionalities remain compatible with the evolutionary optimization module of pyGDM for nano-photonics inverse design.