PhotonForge Python

9 mins

By Lucas Heitzmann Gabrielli and Prashanta Kharel

In these tutorials, you will learn about using PhotonForge's Python interface to design real-world Photonic Integrated Circuits (PICs). With support for Process Design Kits (PDKs) from leading foundries, PhotonForge allows engineers to optimize and validate complex, real-world PICs, accelerating innovation from concept to fabrication-ready designs. The tutorials are divided into short guides and examples that introduce key concepts such as components, technology, ports, and simulation models. Each tutorial is accompanied by a video that you can follow. You can also download and run the notebooks yourself or on our notebook server.

Skills you will develop

After completing these tutorials, you will be able to:

Create layouts of components and PICs in PhotonForge

Load foundry-specific PDKs and run component-level simulations

Generate compact models for your photonic components and run circuit simulations

Run Monte-Carlo analyses and parameter sweeps for fabrication-tolerant designs

What you will learn

Tutorials

1 Technology

3 mins Start

What is Technology in PhotonForge?
Loading a foundry-specific technology
Inspecting contents of the Technology file

2 Layers

3 mins Start

Typical layer definitions for GDS and OASIS files
Adding geometric shapes to various fabrication process layers
Customizing existing processes
Adding and removing layers from a technology

3 Ports

4 mins Start

How ports are defined in PhotonForge?
Inspecting port cross-sections
Creating your own custom port specification
Creating waveguides and routing using port specifications
Auto-detection of ports and adding ports to components

4 PDK Components

3 mins Start

Creating building blocks that make up PICs
Loading components from foundry-provided PDKs
Converting 2D layouts to FDTD simulations in Tidy3D

5 Parametric Component Library

4 mins Start

Loading PCells from our component library
Caching simulation results
Updating parametric components

6 Custom Parametric Components

3 mins Start

Creating your own PCell
Making persistent function arguments
Saving and loading parametric components as .phf files

7 Routing and Connections

4 mins Start

Create a photonic circuit by referencing existing components
Automatically connecting components by specifying ports
Creating waveguide routes to link components
Calculation path lengths after auto-routing

8 Importing a GDSII/OASIS Layout

4 mins Start

Loading 2D layout files used during fabrication
Assigning ports and models to convert layouts to component models for simulation
Checking netlists to ensure proper connections

9 Exporting a GDSII/OASIS Layout

2 mins Start

Exporting components as .gds or .oasis files

10 S Parameters

4 mins Start

Running component or circuit-level simulations to calculate S-matrices
Visualization and post-processing of S-matrix data

11 Tidy3D Model

4 mins Start

Specifying full 3D FDTD models for any component
Updating Tidy3D model settings like meshing and symmetries
Skipping unnecessary simulation runs
Visualizing field distributions

12 Circuit Model

5 mins Start

Running circuit simulations based on S-matrices of subcomponents
Creating virtual connections between components

13 Data Model

3 mins Start

Loading experimental data to create simulation models
Generating touchstone files (.snp) for interfacing with other simulation software
Interpolating S-matrix data

Learning Center

PhotonForge Python

Skills you will develop

What you will learn