Month 2025-10 — Delivered two feature-rich notebooks in flexcompute/tidy3d-notebooks, expanding experimentation capabilities and improving compatibility. Implemented unsteady heat notebook enhancements with updated metadata and capability descriptions (mode analysis, 2D simulation, perturbation medium) and refreshed kernel version for compatibility. Introduced a silicon-to-plasmonic waveguide coupler notebook that automates environment/material setup, defines geometry, and demonstrates Bayesian optimization to improve coupling efficiency, achieving a 40.1% transmission. No major bugs fixed this month. These efforts enhance reproducibility, reduce setup friction for users, and demonstrate practical AI-assisted optimization for photonics simulations.

June 2025 monthly summary for flexcompute/tidy3d-notebooks: Delivered the Waveguide Bend Group Delay Analysis Notebook, enabling calculation of waveguide bend group delay using both FDTD and mode solver approaches with visualizations of setups and results. No major bugs fixed this period. Impact: accelerates design validation, improves accuracy checks, and strengthens training assets for the team; demonstrates proficiency in Python notebooks, FDTD and mode-solver methods, and data visualization.

May 2025 monthly summary: Delivered significant photonics modeling capabilities across tidy3d-notebooks and tidy3d. Key features include: (1) a disordered plasmonic system notebook simulating silver nanoparticles on a LiF spacer with a spacer-thickness sweep affecting spectral and chromaticity responses; (2) a silicon waveguide nonlinear optics notebook (TPA/FCA) with parameter sweep reproducing Nature-paper results; and (3) a topological photonic crystals FDTD notebook demonstrating chiral edge states. Additionally, extended mesh tooling in tidy3d enables height-based mesh generation from height data with robust unit tests. Major bugs fixed: none reported this month. Overall impact: expanded modeling capabilities, improved reproducibility and validation against published results, and increased design exploration efficiency through automated parameter sweeps and tests. Technologies/skills demonstrated: Tidy3D FDTD, Jupyter notebooks, parameter sweeps, unit testing, and triangle-mesh generation.

April 2025 performance summary for the flexcompute/tidy3d-notebooks repository. Delivered a focused set of notebook-centric features and quality improvements that enhance onboarding, design experimentation, and demonstration of advanced photonics concepts. Clear impact on usability, design throughput, and educational value with measurable technical execution across multiple notebooks.

March 2025 monthly summary for flexcompute/tidy3d-notebooks. Focused on introducing an end-to-end inverse design workflow for photonic power splitters and on improving notebook quality and discoverability through metadata fixes. The work strengthens reproducibility and accelerates design exploration for users of tidy3d in photonics applications.

February 2025 monthly summary for flexcompute/tidy3d-notebooks. Delivered three key features, with no major bugs fixed this month. The work enhances benchmarking, educational value, and reproducibility, delivering clear business value for customers and internal teams.

January 2025 monthly performance for flexcompute/tidy3d-notebooks: Delivered three major notebook enhancements that advance design capabilities and scalability of EME simulations. The Ultra-broadband PBS notebook provides a complete design and simulation workflow using anisotropic metamaterials and subwavelength gratings, including setup, mode analysis, parameter-sweep optimization, and results visualization. Batch mode solving for EME simulations was integrated via a regular web API, refactoring submission and data handling to enable cloud-based batch processing and improved efficiency. Notebook code formatting cleanup across multiple notebooks improved readability and maintainability. Note: no major bugs fixed this month; maintenance focused on feature delivery and code quality.

December 2024 — flexcompute/tidy3d-notebooks: Delivered a curated set of features and bug fixes that improve reliability, discoverability, and usability of notebook-based workflows, directly enhancing research productivity and collaboration. The work focuses on documentation/metadata, interactive tooling, and performance benchmarking to support experimentation and design optimization. Impact highlights include improved notebook header stability, enhanced discoverability of examples through metadata and imagery, and an interactive GUI enabling localized and server-based mode solving for multiple waveguide configurations. Additionally, a FDTD benchmarking notebook provides baseline comparisons for absorbers vs PML across layers and grid resolutions, informing cost-benefit decisions for simulations.