Multiple-scattering T-matrix simulations for nanophotonics: symmetries and periodic lattices

TL;DR

This paper extends the T-matrix multiple scattering method to infinite periodic nanophotonic structures, leveraging symmetries and Ewald summation to enable efficient simulations of systems with tens of thousands of particles.

Contribution

The authors develop a new implementation of the T-matrix method for periodic structures, incorporating symmetries and Ewald summation for improved efficiency and scalability.

Findings

Enables simulation of large periodic nanostructures with tens of thousands of particles.

Improves computational efficiency by exploiting symmetries and lattice summation techniques.

Provides an open-source implementation under GNU GPL.

Abstract

The multiple scattering method T-matrix (MSTMM) can be used to solve the electromagnetic response of systems consisting of many compact scatterers, retaining a good level of accuracy while using relatively few degrees of freedom, largely surpassing other methods in the number of scatterers it can deal with. Here we extend the method to infinite periodic structures using Ewald-type lattice summation, and we exploit the possible symmetries of the structure to further improve its efficiency, so that systems containing tens of thousands of particles can be studied with relative ease. We release a modern implementation of the method, including the theoretical improvements presented here, under GNU General Public Licence.