Volume Holographic Gratings

Volume Holographic Gratings (VHGs) are well-known for their high spectral and angular sensitivity combined with adjustable diffraction efficiencies. Hence these gratings are an appropriate tool in optical systems that require accurate spectral and angular filtering. Due to their characteristic three-dimensional and smooth modulation of the refractive index, the modeling can pose numerical challenges, e.g. determining a fine-enough discretization to respect the continuous nature of the refractive-index profile. This can make a simulation of such structures quite demanding computationally, especially when the volume grating is used as just one component in a full, more complex system.

The fast physical optics modeling and design software VirtualLab Fusion enables a fast and accurate simulation of even complex optical systems containing Volume Holographic Gratings by combining specialized solvers for the individual components, such as the Fourier Modal Method in the case of VHGs. Check out the use cases below for an example of an angular-filtering volume grating used in conjunction with a diffractive beam splitter to improve the initial design, as well as an overall introduction on how to configure a volume grating in VirtualLab Fusion.