A new mode has been
added to Reverse Engineer that makes it easier to derive optical constants of a
single layer. When Reverse Engineer is started, you can now choose between
reverse engineering a multilayer and or reverse engineering a single layer. In
the case of the single layer, a design is not needed. Only the approximate
layer thickness and an initial material model are needed. The material model
automatically has its Action set to Adjust. After that, Reverse Engineer can be
used in the usual way.
Material Models can
now have maximum and minimum limits set on their parameters. These limits are
used by Reverse Engineer when adjusting material models. The limits are not
normally visible but will appear when Edit > Reverse Engineer Parameters is
checked. If the limits are blank, then there are no limits to values of the
parameters.
In Performance >
Errors, Keep Worst Designs now works when Statistics table is selected.
Transmittance Delta
is now available as a calculation parameter for Designs with Thick Layers and is
also available in Stack.
The following
problem has been fixed:
When
the packing density limits were set to a minimum of 0 and a maximum of 1 and
the packing density of a layer was set to 1, the optimizers did not change the
packing density of that layer.
The following
problem has been fixed:
Some
designs containing graded layers and thick layers did not optimize.
The following
problem has been fixed:
Unsorted
external internal transmittance data was not sorted when imported into the
Essential Macleod
V11.10.610
Core
The following
problems have been fixed:
When
the design display order was set to Substrate at Top, the random thickness plot
in Reverse Engineer was blank.
When a script that had been added to the
Tools menu was then moved to a different menu, it would not always appear after
restarting the program.
The optical constants tool now records the derived layer thickness in the material created from the optical constant derivation.
The paste command now replaces a contiguous set of layers with the layers to be pasted. Previously the layers were inserted into the design. If a non-contiguous set are selected, the layers will still be inserted.
The link materials command now only links materials in the selected layer set if at least one layer has been selected. If no layers have been selected, then all layers of the same material will be linked.
The following problems have been fixed:
In Global Edit for Designs, using scale factor for packing density limits resulted in incorrect limits.
When a new material not already present a design was used in a context, switching to that context caused the optical constants display for the material to show zero.
Exporting an Active Plot caused an error.
The following problems have been fixed:
On some virtual machines, the program did not start properly.
Tools > Design Tools > Symmetrical Periods does not now have to be closed before a design can be edited again. It can remain open whilst a design is being edited.
The following problems have been fixed:
The word “phase” was missing from the reflectance phase target in the target editor.
After performing sort, scale or transpose on a table, the warning about the table having been edited did not appear when closing the edited table.
When a design was created using a Cauchy material, adding it to a new Stack resulted in an error.
Differential
Evolution now can restart optimization from a saved intermediate population
rather than starting from the beginning each time it is started. To enable
restarting in this way, Keep Population must be checked in Differential Evolution
Parameters. To continue Differential Evolution from the kept population,
Restore Population in Differential Evolution Parameters must be checked. If it
is not checked, then Differential Evolution will begin optimization with a new
random population as though it is being started for the first time. If a number
is entered into Save Interval, then the current population will be saved
regularly. If something happens that causes execution to stop, for example a
power failure, the saved design can be loaded. Then checking Restore Population
will cause Differential Evolution to continue from the last saved population.
Tools
> Compact can now preserve optical thickness. When selected, the optical
thickness of a layer that is to be removed will be added to the replacement
layer.
The
Errors plot will now show the Yield Specification if requested.
Yield
details statistics have been added to the bottom of the Yield Details table.
Plot
column for Tables now plots multiple selected data columns in a table.
The
following problems have been fixed:
Interactive plot did not
work with link numbers greater than 100.
The cursor readout in a plot now works correctly when
the x axis is ordered from high to low as well as from low to high.
Increased the precision of graded layer modeling
The following problem has been fixed
csv files using “,” as the decimal
separator were not loaded correctly.
Added Plot Yield Specification to Errors for Stack
The following problems have been fixed
Worst case values in Yield Details were
not always correctly presented.
The 2nd Axis error plots
were for a different set of perturbed designs than were used for the 1st Axis
plots.
The ability to
generate yield details has been added to the Errors tool. Previously, when
estimating yield, only a summary was available that displayed the proportion of
perturbed designs that met the yield specification. It can be difficult,
especially when there are several components in the yield specification to
determine the yield specification component that failed. The yield detail
shows, for each component, the value of that component and whether the
perturbed design met the component’s required value. Additionally, the
perturbed design corresponding to the results in the yield details table can be
displayed by double-clicking on the row in the yield details table.
More than one
polarization can now be selected in Color calculations. Previously p, s or mean
polarization could be selected. Now, combinations of polarizations can also be
selected. For example, p and s polarization, or s and mean polarization.
Yield estimation
including yield details have been added to Stack. The yield specification has
the same form as for a Design. Note that script yield specifications are not
supported in Stack.
Yield estimation
including yield details have been added to vStack. The yield specification has
the same form as for a Design. Note that script yield specifications are not
supported in vStack.
The behavior of a
yield specification script has been modified. Previously a yield specification
script was expected to return 0 meaning that the specification was satisfied and
non-zero to indicate failure to meet the specification. Now the yield
specification script can return a meaningful value and that value will be
compared to the required value and operator in the yield specification to
determine success or failure. The value returned by the yield specification
script will be displayed in the yield details table.
Optionally, two
extra functions may be defined in a yield specification script. The first
provides information for the details column in the
yield specification. This function must be named using the name of the entry
point of the value calculation function and appending “Details”. For example,
if the value calculation function is “MySpecification”,
the name of the details function must be “MySpecificationDetails”.
This function must return a string containing the text to be displayed in the details column. The second function provides a format string
for formatting the values returned by the value calculation function. Values in
the yield details table will be formatted according to this string. The
function must be named using the same name as the value calculation function
with “Format” appended. For the “MySpecification”
example, this function must be named “MySpecificationFormat”
The following problem has been fixed:
Reverse
Engineer did not correctly load the substrate thickness from a saved file.
A new error history window is now created
each time Performance > Errors is selected and Save
Worst Designs is checked.
The import editor now allows a decimal symbol
to be specified. This permits the easy entry of a data file generated in a
different locale. For example, several locales use “,” as the decimal symbol.
In locales that use “.”, data from these files would be incorrectly imported.
Entering “,” as the decimal symbol in the import editor allows the data to be
correctly imported.
Reverse Engineer will now warn if thickness
limits have been set and one or more thicknesses are outside those limits.
When using automatic extraction in optical
constant derivation, data below a specified wavelength and data above a specified
wavelength can be excluded from the process. To specify the wavelengths use
Exclude Data Below and Exclude Data Above in Calculate > Automatic
Parameters in the Optical Constants tool. These limits only apply to the
current Optical Constants session.
Multiple points can now be deleted in a
single selection in the Optical Constants tool. Drag a box around the points to
be deleted. When the mouse button is released, the points will be marked with
green dots. Clicking on Delete Points will delete all the points.
The PlotCreator
object now can save the plot as a jpeg file. The definition is
<PlotCreator>.SaveAsJpeg(Filename as String, Optional OKToOverwrite
As False)
The following problems have been fixed:
Materials that were
only in the synthesis materials list of a design would not be loaded from the
archive.
It was possible to
enter a folder name that did not exist in File > Save Designs. Now the
folder will be created if the user permits it.
The following problem has been fixed:
On some computers,
the Essential Macleod would not start.
The following problem has been fixed:
Active Plot did not
work correctly when a plot used the 2nd vertical axis.
Hue Angle can now be expressed in the range
0-360 as well as -180-180. The range is controlled in Options > General on
the Color tab.
Designs containing Thick Layers cannot have
non-zero derivative targets. The program now checks that the targets do not
contain non-zero derivative targets during editing and when starting
optimization.
It is now possible to have more than 100
Sources.
Ts-Tp, Rs-Rp, (Ts-Tp)/(Ts+Tp) and (Rs-Rp/(Rs+Rp) now produce results in the Errors statistics table.
Tools > Sensitivity > Macleod Turning
Point caused an error if p-polarization was used in the calculations.
Double-sided stress calculations have been added to
the Design editor. This is available when a single thick layer is present in
the design and will show the effect of two coatings on the deflection of the
thick layer.
Synthesis and Non-local histories can now be saved.
The file has the extension .hst.
A history file can be loaded with File > Open. To see the history files in the
folder, change the file type to History Files (*.hst)
in the file chooser. Additionally, the individual designs can be saved (File
> Save Designs …) A prompt will appear where a file name pattern to be used
for saving is specified. This file name pattern can include a design number,
the merit figure of the design, the number of layers and the thickness. This
file name pattern is used to create the individual design filenames. These
saved individual designs can then be opened in the usual way.
Each time a new synthesis or non-local refinement is
performed a new history window will be created and will contain only the
results from that action. Previously all historical data was added to the same
history window.
A new method of adding material during needle
synthesis has been added, Material is added to the design when it is no longer
possible to improve the design by inserting needle layers. The new method
attempts to reduce the increase in merit figure when material is added.
The following problem has been fixed:
The Coating Lock
parameter in Stack did not prevent a Design from being optimized.
Layer numbers now always start at 1 next to the
Substrate regardless of the Design display order.
Added Plot Yield to the Parameters > Performance
options for Designs. Checking this box will cause the parts of the Yield
Specification that match the plot parameters to be plotted.
Plot Targets now include targets that match all the
items in the Incident Angle list when the horizontal axis is wavelength or all
the items in the Calculation Wavelength list when the horizontal axis is
incident angle.
The material display order is now stored locally. This
means that in cases where a materials database is shared between multiple
users, each user has their own material display order.
The ability to display the file type in the window
title has been added. This is useful when there are several files of the same
name but different types. With the file type
displayed, the different windows can easily be distinguished in the Window
menu. To activate this option, check Show Window Type in Options > General
on the Windows tab.
The following problem has been fixed:
Active Plot did
not work correctly when a thick layer was present in a design and the
horizontal axis was layer thickness.
Color Difference calculations have been added. Both
CIEDE2000 and CIE76 color difference calculations have been added. The color
difference of a coating may be calculated in the Color command by clicking on
the Difference tab and entering a reference set of color coordinates. Clicking
on Table will display the CIE76 and CIEDE2000 values. Color difference targets
may also be entered. The complete target specification requires the difference
value and the reference color L*a*b* (or L*c*h*) specification. The color
coordinates are attached to the color difference by using the same link number
for each of the targets. Creating a new row by setting the target type to
CIE2000 or CIE76 will create the four rows and link them together. If Current
Value has been enabled, the L*a*b*/L*c*h* values will also be shown as well as
the difference value. The Yield specification also includes color difference
specifications.
The performance types (Ts - Tp)/(Ts + Tp) and (Rs - Rp)/(Rs + Rp)
have been added.
The Edge Filter tool now remembers the number of
periods, search parameters and long-wave pass/short-wwave
pass selection.
A Reset button has been added to Options > General
Units. This resets the units back to the internal defaults.
The following problems have been fixed:
If a material had no entries for internal transmittance, then opening a design using that material would always attempt to open the design’s archive.
Error parameters were not loaded from the design file
Clicking the Adjust button multiple times in Reverse Engineer would start multiple adjustments of the same data. Now only one adjustment is performed at a time.
Freezing an Active Plot did not work when a design had thick layers
The errors calculation did not correctly set the active materials used for the incident medium or substrate.
Layer number could not be entered in Parameters > Performance
During the import of a design from an external source, the matching of the materials in the external design to the materials in the database has been improved.
The following problem has been fixed:
The previous layer on a chip was not always correctly selected.
The following problem has been fixed:
After validating a Site Key, the options were not immediately updated.
The following problem has been fixed:
Derivatives for Back Reflectance were not available in the Target Generator.
The following problem has been fixed:
When only p-polarization was selected for a oblique angle plot and the incident angle label was selected, the label was not displayed on the plot. Also if Table was selected, the s-polarization columns were empty.
The following problem has been fixed:
The maximum number of layers was not shown in the Optimac parameters dialog.
The following problem has been fixed:
In Stack, under certain conditions, the incident angle in the legend for the 2nd vertical axis was not correctly displayed.
Added Try Alternate Paths to Simplex, Optimac Synthesis and Needle Synthesis. Most optimization methods choose a single path when moving from the starting point to an improved solution. For more difficult problems, this might not be the best path to take. Try Alternate Paths causes the optimizer to choose a different path based on potential results in the next iteration. As the optimizer does not know which path will be taken, it has to consider the next iteration for each possible path. This causes an increase in run time as more Merit Figure calculations must be performed, so the technique will cause a slowdown in iteration speed. To use Try Alternate Paths, check the option in the parameters form for Simplex or Optimac or Needle synthesis.
The Edge Filter tool has been enhanced so that it now finds designs for a broader range of materials.
The Substrate n,k & T tool has been enhanced so that it now can also accept single-sided reflectance measurements where the second-surface reflection has been suppressed.
Various plot parameters can now have multiple values specified. These include: Incident Angle, Calculation Wavelength, Temperature Offset, Bandwidth and Cone Angle. Multiple angles are specified by using a separator that is not one of the following: a digit, +, -, E, e, period, comma. For example, if “0/15/30” is entered into the incident angle box, then when plot is selected, curves for the three angles will be plotted. Tables only use the first angle in the list.
The following problem has been fixed:
Some Reverse Engineer files could not be loaded.
The following problem has been fixed:
The color patch was not correctly displayed when a regular color patch was produced after using the Errors command with a color patch.
The following problem has been fixed:
Polarization for Transmittance GDD could not be specified in the target generator.
The following problem has been fixed:
If a yield specification contained an average specification and a regular specification and 100% of the cases passed the yield test, the reported yield was incorrect.
Added NOA83H to the Organics group of the Materials Library
The following problem has been fixed:
Starting Non-Local refinement immediately after loading a vStack caused an error when the Thickness Error Limits option was selected.
Added Ts-Tp and Rs-Rp as calculation and optimization parameters. These are often used as alternate expressions to transmittance and reflectance psi for beamsplitter performance.
Added T/(T+R) and R/(T+R) as calculation parameters.
Added total optical thickness and total physical thickness to the synthesis history window for Designs
The following problem has been fixed
The Monitor Wavelength [Actual] column was not automatically displayed when it contained data.
Added Ts-Tp and Rs-Rp as calculation and optimization parameters.
The following problem has been fixed
All polarizations were not included in the errors statistics table when the beam angle was 0.
Active Plot now adds extra detail to performance plots for designs. Previously the level of detail in the plot was limited to facilitate rapid calculation. Extra detail is now added when variable values are not changing.
Data grids (in for example Design, Material, Table, Reverse Engineer, Runsheet) now scroll as the scrollbar is adjusted. Previously, the grid only updated after the mouse button was released during scrolling.
If a context is in effect, the context name is included in color results.
Back Reflectance Phase has been added to the performance calculation options.
In Reverse Engineer the Substrate Type (Parallel or Wedged) can now be specified for each measurement. Previously, the Substrate Type applied to all measurements. This allows, for example, a transmittance measured on a Parallel Substrate Type to be used together with a reflectance measured where the second surface reflection has been removed (corresponding to a Substrate Type of Wedged).
Differential Evolution can now be continued if the maximum number of generations has been reached. If continuation is selected the refinement continues until at most the maximum number of generations is reached again, where it can be continued again if desired.
The following problem has been fixed
Clicking on Plot in Stack Performance Parameters when the horizontal axis was set to Incident Angle did not work.
The following problems have been fixed
Target current values for color targets were not calculated.
Beam distances were not correctly saved when the decimal separator was not “.”
The following problem has been fixed
Lock codes pasted in from external sources were not recognized.
The following problem has been fixed
Calculating the color of Stack when a separate Substrate file was used sometimes caused the program to stop working.
The following problem has been fixed
Plotting a stack over a region with high transmittance and high reflectance with a small range Y axis was very slow.
Added Lock and Link data to the information copied to the clipboard.
Runsheet now remembers the displayed columns when a runsheet is saved.
Context can now be used with thick layers in the Design editor.
The following problem has been fixed
The Copy Layers command for Designs now keeps the same display order when layers are pasted into an external document as in the Essential Macleod.
Added a YieldSpecifications object so that the yield data can be accessed by a script.
The following problem has been fixed
Statistics calculations in the Errors tool for delta did not correctly account for when the value of delta crossed 180 degrees.
Added LoadPlot method to the PlotCreator object. This allows an existing plot file to be loaded into the plot displayed by PlotCreator.
Reverse Engineer now displays the adjusted thicknesses as well as the percentage change.
Reverse Engineer now recognizes graded layers. The thicknesses of these layers can take part in the reverse engineering process.
Layers can now be linked together in Reverse Engineer. The ratios of thicknesses of layers linked with the same link number are not changed during adjustment. To reflect this, only one layer each linked set can have its Action value set in the Adjustment window. Layers can be linked by entering link numbers in the Link column (shown using File -> Display Setup) or by selecting layers and using the Link command in the Link menu.
Reverse Engineer now supports individual limits for each layer. The limits are entered in the Design tab of the main Reverse Engineer window. To show the limits columns use File -> Display Setup. The values can be entered individually, or in groups by using the Global Edit command in the Edit menu.
Added Scale Columns command to the Edit menu for Tables. This command scales values in selected columns of the table according to the function:
New Value = Old Value * Scale Factor + Offset
Substrate n, k & T, Optical Constants and Reverse Engineer now use an improved tool for importing spectral data. The tool shows graphically the data being imported and allows the units of the data being imported to be specified. This means that the data does not have to be in the same units as the Essential Macleod.
Runsheet now starts with a directed data entry tool . When a Runsheet is created, you will be asked to choose the files containing the Design and Machine Configuration and make any changes to the parameters. This is the same information as is entered in the Edit -> Parameters dialog of Runsheet.
Added Wedged as a back surface treatment option. When Wedged is selected, the back surface is untreated and any reflection in the chip walks out of the aperture of the system.
The following problem has been fixed:
Calculating back reflected color when contexts were present in a Design did not function correctly.
A new parameter Minimum Extremum has been added to the Extrema Detection tab of Options -> Runsheet. When using back reflectance monitoring for a high index material that is also absorbing on a fresh monitoring chip, the first minimum extremum does not occur at the start of the layer. It actually occurs a short distance into the layer, but is very small and is not detectable by an optical monitor. Run sheet will sometimes detect this minimum and count it in the list of extrema. When the difference between the signal at the start of the monitoring chip and the signal at the first extremum of the first layer on that chip is less than Minimum Extremum, the extremum will be ignored.
The target generator can now generate more than 32767 points.
The following problem has been fixed:
Performance plotted as a function of layer optical thickness contained spurious spikes in the plot.
The following problems have been fixed:
Help->Check for Updates was not working.
Exporting to Zemax did not support Unicode files.
In Reverse Engineer, the layer numbering was not correct for some orientations of the Design display
The delay between initiating a plot and the initial plot appearing has been reduced.
Adaptive plotting now stops plotting earlier than previously with negligible impact on plot appearance.
Active Plot now supports more than one plot window. If an Active Plot window is open and another Active Plot is requested for a different set of parameters, a new window is opened, but the Variables in the first Active Plot will be used for updating the second (and subsequent) Active Plot window.
The Optical Constants tool now includes a directed data entry and automatic parameter extraction. When a new Optical Constants is started, you will be directed to enter the files containing the spectral data and provide information on the measurement conditions. After this data has been provided, the tool will attempt to automatically extract the optical constants. The best result will be displayed. Alternative results are also available for review. Once the process has completed, the Optical Constants data can be edited in the usual way.
When a file is opened in a Job, the Job name is now included in the recent file list.
The following problem has been fixed:
In Reverse Engineer, the Material Thickness was still adjusted when the Adjust type was set to Lock.
Added Soda Lime glasses to the Materials Library. The material Float has been moved from the Dielectrics group to the Soda Lime Glass group.
The following problem has been fixed:
When a Stack was pasted into a spreadsheet, the coating filename in the emergent medium row was incorrectly placed.
Added Create Material to the Herpin design tool (Tools -> Designs Tools -> Herpin). Checking Create Material will cause the Herpin tool to create a material when the equivalent layer properties are calculated.
Added Thickness Profile to Design (in the Tools menu). This is similar to the Index Profile tool except that it plots a bar chart of layer thickness as a function of layer number. Thickness Profile permits easy visualization of patterns and trends in layer thickness such as cyclic variation and increasing or decreasing thickness values..
Added an empty layer to Context. The Context tool allows different materials to be substituted into a Design so that the effects of, for example, different substrates may be analyzed. The empty layer provides the option of analyzing differences between when a layer is present of absent. This permits examining the difference in performance of a coating deposited on a patterned surface where the patterning is, for example, an electrode layout.
Added Select Materials command to the Edit menu of Designs. Selecting a layer in the Design and then clicking on Select Materials in the Edit menu causes all layers of the same material to be selected.
Added the plot cursor to Reverse Engineer performance plots. Using the <Alt> key whilst dragging the mouse will display the x, y co-ordinates of the nearest trace in the same way as for a regular plot.
Added a Sort command to Table (in the Edit menu). This is particularly useful for re-ordering imported data where, for example, the data may be in descending wavelength order, but it is needed in increasing wavelength order. To sort a table, click in the column header and select Sort Ascending or Sort Descending in the Edit menu. Sorts can be applied in sequence to achieve a multiple column sort. For example to sort a table containing a column of polarization state values (p or s) and a wavelength column into a table of ascending wavelength with p-polarization data before s-polarization data, first sort the polarization column so that all p data is displayed before the s data and then sort the wavelength column. Sorting the wavelength column does not change the order of rows where the wavelength values are identical, so for the same wavelength, p-polarization data will be listed before s-polarization data.
Added a Transpose command (Edit menu) to Table. This command converts row oriented data to columnar orientation and vice versa.
Added pre-defined units. Options -> General Units allows you to specify the units for data entry and display, but previously required you to enter the scale factors and symbols. For various units (e.g. Wavelength, Frequency, Physical Thickness) a Pre-defined Units list allows the quick selection of common units such as nanometers, microns, Angstroms etc.
The target generator (Edit -> Generate in the Target window) now has the ability to generate linked pairs of targets. Click on the Linked Targets button to activate linked target generation. There is a now a primary and secondary target. The primary target is generated as before. The secondary target is created with a specified relationship to the primary target. For example, the secondary target could be at twice the frequency of the primary target. The link multipliers are specified for each target, but the generator automatically creates the link numbers. For more information on target linking, please the Refinement and Synthesis chapter of the user manual.
Add brightness to the color patch. Previously, the color patch always displayed the color at a normalized brightness so that color was always visible in low transmittance or reflectance conditions. Checking the Absolute box in the Color Parameters dialog now causes the brightness to be included in the color patch. For situations where there is visible illumination from the other side of a coating, the Level parameter can specify the amount of illumination on the back side.
The following problems have been fixed:
A license transfer in progress could not be canceled.
Pasting a Stack into an external document did not work when materials with internal transmittance definitions were present.
Added Beam Distance to vStack. Previously vStack assumed that all media were transparent and did not require distances between media. Adding the Beam Distance parameter allows vStack to include losses in media and distance-related properties such as Group Delay in the performance calculations.
Added Errors to vStack. The Errors tool permits assessment of the impact of errors in individual coatings on the overall performance of a vStack.
The following problem has been fixed:
Adding a large number of controls (>90) to an Active Plot caused an error.
Added Yield estimator. This is used in conjunction with the Errors tool to estimate the proportion of perturbed designs that will meet a given specification. A specification for a Design is entered using Edit -> Yield Specification. When running the Errors tool, check Estimate Yield to see the estimate.
Added a polarization visualization tool. A input polarization state consisting of major and minor axis amplitudes and a tilt angle is entered. The tool calculates the output polarization state and displays both input and output states on a diagram that can be copied to the clipboard for pasting into a document.
Added the Hartmann material model to the set of possible models for refractive index in a Material.
The program is now locked and an hourglass is displayed when saving files. This prevents problems when saving files over a slow network.
The following problems have been fixed:
Under specific conditions an overflow error occurred.
In Reverse Engineer, the substrate thickness was not saved.
Added proportional thickness limit to Reverse Engineer.
The following problem has been fixed:
Exporting a design Zemax with relative thicknesses and substrate actually exported absolute thickneses.
The following problems have been fixed:
In Reverse Engineer, when Substrate Type was Wedged, calculations were still performed as though the Substrate Type was Parallel.
The Drude model B parameter is no longer allowed to be zero.
If the CRI reference illuminant is undefined, color refinement will fail if no previous color calculation has been performed.
The ability to extract optical constants from ellipsometer data for an uncoated substrate has been added. To use ellipsometer data, select Substrate n, k & T from the Tools menu and click on the Ellipsometer tab.
Average calculations have been added to targets for magnitude related targets. These targets use the same target links and link multipliers except that the final value is divided by the sum of the link multipliers. Thus unweighted and weighted averages can be calculated. Note that the averages are only calculated for the target wavelengths in the link set and hence any excursions between the individual targets will not be included in the average calculation.
A user-defined power distribution has been added to the cone calculation options. The distribution is specified in a reference file as a set of relative power levels as a function of angle. The data is used in a cone calculation by selecting the Profile cone type and selecting the profile file from the list.
Reverse Engineer now supports substrates with coatings on both sides.
Reverse Engineer now requires that the Material file for the substrate includes internal transmittance data if the substrate is not lossless. Separate Substrate files are no longer supported.
Reverse Engineer now shows the selected optimizer in the title bar. For Simplex, “<S>” is displayed and for Differential Evolution, “<DE>” is displayed.
The user manual is now available by selecting User Manual from the Help manual.
The following problem has been fixed:
Simulated Annealing did not adjust packing densities when a maximum packing density was specified in the design.
Double-clicking on a script in the Script Manager list will cause it to be executed.
The following problem has been fixed:
Absorptance Rate calculations for
large incident angles were not correct.
Clicking on Table in the Parameters -> Performance dialog of the Design editor will use the 2nd Vertical Axis plot parameter, if is showing, to define the set of parameters calculated for the table rather than always using the 1st Vertical Axis plot parameter.
The following problems have been fixed:
Some long Optimac optimizations
showed overflow errors.
Stack performance parameters did not remember reflectance settings when the 2nd
vertical axis was set to <No Plot>
Monitor Type is now included in the NVision export. The NVision optical monitor will use the monitor type to pre-select the type of monitoring to be used.
Some long Optimac optimizations showed overflow errors.
The following problem has been fixed:
Sellmeier coefficients in the Spektrum export file were in units of nm2, they are now in units of um2.
Added email buttons in the registration and licensing forms to allow easy creation of email requests for keys.
The Optical Constants tool now clears results when new data is imported into the tool.
The following problems have been fixed:
Downloading patch files in the Essential Macleod should now be possible in Windows 10
The index profile plot did not correctly label the x axis when thickness were set to QWOTs
The following problems have been fixed:
Active Color plots did not load when a background file was used.
Calculating statistics on an Electric Field plot did not work.
Back Reflectance color calculations have been added for Designs with only thin layers.
The following problem has been fixed:
The statistics table calculations were not correct for back reflectance.
The following problem has been fixed:
Some design files could not be opened by double-clicking on the file.
The following problems have been fixed:
Entering an ideal metal (n = 0) in a design caused an error.
With a match angle set, changing the incident medium to a high index caused an error.
Materials can now have the refractive index dispersion expressed as a Drude, or Lorentz, or a Drude-Lorentz model in addition to the other models already present. See the Materials Management chapter of the user manual for the definitions of these models in the Essential Macleod.
Reverse Engineer can now adjust Material parameters when searching for a solution to measured data. This adjustment is only available when a non-tabular material model is used. See the Material Models Section of the Reverse Engineer chapter of the User Manual for more information.
Reverse Engineer can now use Reflectance Delta and Reflectance Psi measurements.
The following problem has been fixed:
Showing color targets in the color patch did not always work when the Design window was maximized.
The number of materials visible in the material drop down list in Design, Stack, vStack has been increased to 10.
The up and down cursor keys will now scroll up and down the material list in the material drop down.
The Compact phase of the synthesis methods will now truncate a compacted to the maximum thickness specified by the layer.
The synthesis methods will now add thickness constraints to each layer added when the material is the same as a layer in the initial design and that layer has thickness constraints.
When Show Targets and Show Color Patch are checked in the Color command, the first row of the color patch will show color representations of the color targets.
The marker styles for the White Point and color targets have been changed to distinguish them from the color values.
Tables generated by the Color command now contain more information (Source, Observer, Mode).
The following problems have been fixed:
Optimac did not work when only color targets were used in Stack
Color targets are now plotted in Stack when requested
The following problem has been fixed:
Color calculations in refinement did not always work when a thick layer using a material with the internal transmittance model set to Use k was present.
The following problems have been fixed:
The plot template did not apply the chart area border.
Color calculations did not work when the CRI reference source was not defined.
Replaced buttons on Active Plot with scroll bar.
Stack and Design with thick layers can now calculate absorption. Reverse Engineer can now use Reflectance Delta and Reflectance Psi measurements.
Stack and Design with thick layers can now calculate and optimize reflectance delta. This is only available when all media/thick layers are wedged.
The following problem has been fixed:
Color calculations did not complete when one of the tristimulus values was zero.
Materials can now include internal transmittance data. Up to now, internal transmittance has been held in a separate Substrate file. Now this data is held in the Material file. The Material now has an Internal Transmittance model. This maybe Undefined, Lossless, Table or Use k. Undefined means there is no definition. Where data is required, either a warning message will be displayed, or the ability to select an existing Substrate file will be provided. For example in Stack, the Material Substrate is now not displayed by default. If a Medium Material is selected that has an Undefined internal transmittance model, then the Medium Substrate column will appear to allow the entry of a Substrate. When the model is Lossless, the internal transmittance is 100% for all wavelengths. When the model is Table, the internal transmittance is defined by a table of values against wavelength. When the model is Use k, the internal transmittance will be derived from the extinction coefficient values. This model is provided for use when no other source of internal transmittance data is available. Generally, extinction coefficient is not usually known with sufficient precision to determine good quality internal transmittance values.
Electric Field now includes a normalized intensity option. When Intensity is selected, the square of the electric field normalized to the square of the incident field in Air at normal incidence (approximately [27 V/m]^2) is calculated.
Added the possibility of non-zero incident angle measurement of substrate data in the Substrate n, k T tool. When the incident angle is not zero, the measurement must be performed with either p- or s-polarized light.
The following problems have been fixed:
When the Substrate n, k T tool was used consecutively in the same session, the internal transmittance calculation did not always update.
The Report tool was not able to print the Medium Type and Medium Thickness columns for a Design when the Show command was used. The parameters MediumType and MediumThickness have been added to allow these columns to be specified with the Show command.
The speed of color calculations in scripts has been improved.
The following problem has been fixed:
A small memory leak in the color calculation caused long running (10s of hours) scripts to fail.
The following problems have been fixed:
The availability of the phase options for the 2nd vertical axis in plot parameters was partially controlled by the 1st vertical axis parameters.
Unwrap phase did not function in Active Plot.
The following problems have been fixed:
License backup was not working.
Simplex refinement when only a color hue target was present did not work.
The following problems have been fixed:
The Materials Library could not be opened when only version 10 had been installed.
Deleting selected layers did not work correctly when scatter layers were present in a design.
The following problems have been fixed:
When a formula containing multiple consecutive identical symbols and ending with a graded or scatter layer was applied to a design, the performance of the design could not be calculated until it had been saved, closed and opened again.
Rows selected for deletion and saved in a template were not correctly deleted in subsequent applications of the template.
Added templates to the Import Editor. A template remembers the formatting of n input data source and can be used to preset the formatting when importing a different set of data. This makes the import process much faster. For more information, please see the Importing Data section of the Essential Macleod Structure chapter of the user manual.
When starting a new Reverse Engineer, the open design dialog is automatically displayed. You do not have to press the Browse button first.
Added Transmittance Psi and Reflectance Psi calculations and targets to Stacks and Designs with thick layers.
The following problem has been fixed:
The T/(T + R) and R/(T + R) targets did not work when a thick layer was present in a Design.
Added Transmittance / (Transmittance + Reflectance) [T/(T + R)] and Reflectance / (Transmittance + Reflectance) [R/(T + R)] targets.
Added x-axis values to Min and Max statistics output for plots.
The following problem has been fixed:
GetGaussianRandomNumber always returned zero.
Added scatter models for estimating effect of scattering on specular transmittance and reflectance performance. These scatter models are used by adding scatter layers to the front of each layer that will be scattering light. There are two types of scatter layer: a short range layer - Scatter{s) and a long range layer – Scatter(l). The short range scatter is implemented as a graded layer and models scatter when the roughness is small compared to the wavelengths of interest. The long range scatter is implemented using the model presented in “Single-layer model for surface roughness” by C. K. Carniglia and D.G. Jensen in Applied Optics Volume 41 Number 16 June 2002. During calculations, each scatter layer replaces the top of the layer below it (nearer to the substrate). The thickness of the scatter layer can only be entered as a physical thickness and the value should be twice the rms roughness of the rough surface being modeled. The calculation automatically thins the layer beneath by the scatter layer thickness for calculations. Thus you do not have to alter the thicknesses of the design layers when the scatter model is added.
Added polarization label to 3d plot titles.
Internal re-organization
The following problems have been fixed:
Polarization Maintenance targets did not plot on a Polarization Maintenance plot.
3d Electric Field plots did not work properly when Active Materials were used.
Reflectance Psi plotted a line at zero.
The following problem has been fixed:
The Leybold lmr file output did not use the physical thickness value in the Runsheet.
The following problem has been fixed:
Importing from text files was not functioning.
The following problem has been fixed:
The Leybold lmr file output did not use the physical thickness value in the Runsheet.
The uds files generated by Hitachi spectrometers can now be read by the Essential Macleod. Files with the uds extension are assumed to contain data in the Hitachi format and will automatically be decoded by the Essential Macleod.
Plots against optical thickness now display the optical thickness convention (FWOT/QWOT).
Active Color Plots do not now re-scale. This allows changes to be more easily seen.
When targets are plotted, different symbols are used for different values of the Operator parameter in the Target window.
Added overplotting capability to Runsheet plots. When overplotting the signal is plotted for layer thicknesses greater than the design thickness. This makes is easy to see if the cut-point is near an extremum or some other feature that might making accurate monitoring more difficult. The overplot size is expressed in optical thickness at the monitoring wavelength. There are two overplot parameters. One is for regular plots and the other is for Active plots. These parameters are found on the Edit -> Parameters dialog for Runsheets. Default values may be set on the Overplot tab of Options -> Runsheet.
Added DeleteLayers and InsertLayers to the Design object. These two methods allow you to delete and insert multiple layers in one call.
Added DeleteMedia and InsertMedia to the Stack object. The two methods allow you to delete and insert multiple media in one call.
Added the read-only property Polarization to the XAxisDesignParameters object and the XAxisStackParameters object. This allows the value of the polarization parameter for the first vertical axis of the Design (or Stack) plot parameters to be read. The value cannot be modified. The CalculateTable, etc. methods return values for p, s and mean polarization where appropriate.
The following problem was fixed:
DeleteMedium and InsertMedium in the Stack object did not work.
The following problems have been fixed:
The color of normal incidence targets plotted in needle synthesis was incorrect.
Version 9.9 files were not backward compatible with older versions of the program.
When contexts were used with color targets, the current values column in the target editor did not show the correct values.
The color targets Global Edit function would change some of the operators even though a change had not been requested.
The following problems have been fixed:
Older format ZEMAX coating.dat files could not be correctly read.
Deleting rows in a table followed by changing the independent column caused the deleted rows to reappear.
The following problem has been fixed:
Y axis limits could not be set for transmittance in designs.
Added the performance parameter Polarization Maintenance. See Polarization Maintenance in The Essential Macleod Structure section of the user manual for more information.
The following problem has been fixed:
Opening a Runsheet that uses a design that has been deleted caused an error.
Added the ability to change layer materials during optimization for Differential Evolution and Non-Local Refinement.
The following problem has been fixed:
Changing the reference wavelength in a design with more than one context caused an error.
The following problems have been fixed:
The color errors plot did not show all points for an a* against b* plot when there were plotted points on both sides of either axes.
The graded layer calculations were not correct when the substrate side layer packing density of the layer after the graded layer was not unity.
Using script targets in a design with thick layers and color targets caused an error during refinement.
Added the materials CZTSe, CZTS, CZTS (1) to the Materials Library
The following problems have been fixed:
Active Plot did not correctly update physical thicknesses when linked layers were present and the thickness units were not nm.
Stack did not correctly calculate back reflectance when the cone angle was non-zero.
Sometimes, a normal incidence color parameter in the Target editor was not calculated.
Added non-local refinement. This method repeatedly runs Simplex, Optimac, Conjugate Gradient, or Quasi-Newton refinement on a design that is randomly altered each time the refinement process is started. A history of the best designs found is retained for later review. This provides a search for a better design that is not dependent upon the starting point.
Added Cauchy and Exponential models for representing extinction coefficient in Materials.
The speed of Reverse Engineer’s Adjustment has been improved.
Reports can now include graphics. Graphics may be added to the report itself and they may also used in the header and footer.
The ZEMAX output has been updated with the current limits and phase information has been added to the Table output.
The following problem has been fixed:
In Windows 8, clicking in an empty row of the materials table cause the program to crash.
The following problem has been fixed:
In Active Plot, variable layer thicknesses were not updated when the scale factor of a link group was changed.
The following problem has been fixed:
Under certain conditions, Runsheet would update layer thicknesses when the corresponding design had been altered with asking the user first.
The Export to CODE-V has been updated to allow the use of 100 wavelengths which is now possible in CODE-V. Additionally, the export now checks that the reference wavelength of the design is within the range of exported wavelength (a reference wavelength outside the range of exported wavelengths causes an error in CODE-V).
The following problems have been fixed:
The admittance of a graded layer with an optical thickness when the incident medium side of the layer had a higher refractive index than the substrate side could not be calculated.
The Ideal Design Only and Plot Absolute Merit Figure buttons were missing from the Independent Sensitivity dialog.
Runsheet now accepts designs with one thick layer, providing the thick layer is next to the Incident Medium or the Substrate.
Added “Deposition Begins at Medium End” to the Parameters dialog. When checked, this changes the order in which a design is imported to the Runsheet so that the layer next to the Incident Medium is the first layer to be deposited rather than the last layer.
Added Mg to the materials library.
The following problem has been fixed:
Mean absorption can now be calculated.
Added Keep Worst Designs capability to the Errors command in the Performance menu for Designs. When plotting errors, if Keep Worst Designs is checked, the Number to Keep worst designs (in terms of merit figure) will be kept in a table. Each row in the table displays the merit figure of the design. Double-clicking on the merit figure will open the design. If the merit figure table is closed, design that are not open or have not been saved will be discarded.
Added Scale Factor option to limit parameters in Global Edit for Designs. When Scale Factor is checked, the corresponding layer parameter is multiplied by the limit parameter to give the new limit parameter value. For example if Scale Factor is checked and Minimum Physical Thickness in Global is set to 0.95, then the Minimum Physical Thickness Limit of each layer in the design will be set to 95% of the layer’s current physical thickness.
The following problem was fixed:
Selecting s-polarization in the Stack 3D plot caused a mean-polarization plot to be produced.
The following problem was fixed:
Pressing the escape key when a script was running, but another program had the keyboard focus caused the script to be interrupted.
The following problem was fixed:
Color parameters were not always calculated for multiple incident angles in Design when thick layers were present.
The following problem was fixed:
If QWOT was selected for displaying optical thicknesses, the thicknesses displayed in the ZEMAX coating.def editor were four times too big.
The following problem was fixed:
Selecting <none> for the source caused an error message to be displayed.
The co-refinement window can now be resized so that an entire filename can be made visible.
The following problem was fixed:
Synthesis would sometimes fail when linked layers were present in a design.
Added “Never use Archive option” to Load data from Archive dialog. When checked, the Load data from Archive dialog will not be shown again and the archive will not be used.
Added “Reset All Messages” to Options menu. Click on this command to restore all optionally displayed messages.
Added GD, GDD, TOD and Phase to the parameters available for refinement.
The Materials Library has been updated with new Schott Filter glass data.
The following problems have been fixed:
Flickering on the screen has been reduced when a window in the Essential Macleod desktop is maximized and a calculation is performed.
Stress analysis now works when a surface energy value is not entered for a material.
Added Undo/Redo capability for Materials, Designs, and Stacks
Added Undo/Redo capability for Runsheets
Added Undo/Redo capability for vStacks
The following problems have been fixed:
Back reflectance calculation did not work in Design when thick layers were present.
Plot statistics were not calculated correctly when a plot trace started with an infinite slope
Cone angle values were not saved in Reverse Engineer.
The width of Materials and Substrates columns will now be automatically adjusted so that the whole of the name is visible.
The following problems have been fixed:
Data can now be pasted into a Table even when a cell in the table is not selected.
Data can now be easily appended to a table by selecting a cell in the insertion row and then pasting the rows.
Plotting did not complete quickly when reflectance magnitude was calculated beyond the critical angle.
Sometimes Reverse Engineer would not load because it incorrectly detected missing materials.
Added SaveAs method and ApplyTemplate method to the PlotCreator object
Added ThreeDPlot object
The following problem has been fixed:
Co-refining vStacks with color targets in more than one vStack did not work.
The materials library has been updated with the latest definitions for glasses from the following providers: CDGM, Hoya, Nikon, Ohara and Schott (including the filter glasses). The Hikari library is replaced by the Nikon library. The older Schott libraries have been deleted.
Copy and Paste behavior has been improved. A selected cell in a tabular display can now be copied to the clipboard. Data from the clipboard can be pasted into a single cell. Selected text within a cell can also be cut, copied or pasted.
The following problem has been fixed:
Export for FRED could output negative extinction coefficients
Added a new refinement method: Differential Evolution. This is an Evolutionary Optimization algorithm that attempts to find better designs by modeling the evolution of a population of designs. For more information search for the term “Differential Evolution” on the internet or you find information in “Differential Evolution A Practical Approach to Global Optimization” by Kenneth Price, Rainer M. Storm and Jouni Lampinen. This implementation of the method also has the ability to search for designs that are less sensitive to independent errors.
Added Export Signal to the Runsheet menu. This exports the signal variation in a csv file so that it may be compared with the signal log files produced by coating equipment.
The following problem has been fixed:
3D plot for Stack did not plot incident angle correctly.
Design will now calculate a mean polarization value for Density, log(Transmittance) and log(Reflectance).
The following problem has been fixed:
Negative values for the Sellmeier A coefficient could be entered in the Material editor.
The following problem has been fixed:
Independent Sensitivity did not plot its results.
The following problem has been fixed:
When a Design was reloaded into a Runsheet with an extra layer, the extra layer was not displayed in the Runsheet table.
Added HOYA Color Filters to the Materials Library.
The following problem has been fixed:
Stack targets were not always plotted when requested.
Added material name search to the materials library. The search is case-insensitive and always looks for an occurrence of the search text anywhere in the material name.
Script Targets and Custom Merit Functions are now available in designs with thick layers.
Added Cauchy and Sellmeier material model to the Material document. The refractive index of a material can now be represented as a set of Cauchy coefficients or a set of Sellmeier coefficients. Tools are also provided to derive Cauchy or Sellmeier coefficients from a table of refractive index values. See the Materials Management chapter of the User Manual for more information.
Added Monitorlink for Laser Zentrum Broadband Optical monitor. See the “MONITORLINK for Laser Zentrum Hannover Broadband Optical Monitor” chapter in the User Manual for more information.
The following problem has been fixed:
Some independent values were missing in the error statistics table in Stack.
The following problems have been fixed:
In overstrike mode pressing the enter key in the last cell caused the Stack window to display empty cells.
A saved Reverse Engineer did not load correctly if the design had only one layer.
The following problem has been fixed:
A Runsheet with data loaded from it archive would not always calculate performance.
The following problems have been fixed:
In Simplex when refining both index and thickness, recycling did not work properly.
If only one polarization was checked, Reflectance Delta did not work in Active Plot.
The following problem has been fixed:
The Design.SubstrateName property did not keep the correct value when a layer was deleted in the design editor.
The following problem has been fixed:
“.” characters in a filename were removed when displayed in the title bar and also from the Save As dialog
The following problem has been fixed:
When Active Plot for selected layers was used and a non-contiguous set of layers was selected, controls for parameters for layers between the selected layers would appear if they had been previously added to an Active Plot.
When using Save As, the name of the current file is pre-selected as the filename. This makes it easier to make a small change to the current filename such as changing a version number.
The following problem has been fixed:
When using the Essential Macleod via Remote Desktop, if the program stopped working, it could not be immediately restarted.
The following problem has been fixed:
Using the Reset button on Active Plot for selected layers did not always work correctly.
The Analysis object did not correctly calculate Electric Field.
Added GetMaximumOpticalThickness, SetMaximumOpticalThickness, GetMinimumOpticalThickness, SetMinimumOpticalThickness methods to the Design object.
Added export of Design and materials to a Spektrum format file
Added export of Design and materials used by design to FilmMaker by Intellemetrics. To export the Design, with the Design active, select Export FilmMaker Design in File menu -> Export. To export the materials used by the design, with the Design active, select Export FilmMaker Materials in File menu -> Export.
Added the following materials to the Semiconductors group of the Materials Library: Gallium Zinc Oxide [GZO], Indium Zinc Oxide deposited at room temperature [IZO (RT)] and Indium Zinc Oxide deposited at 250 Celsius [IZO (250)]
The Zeonex material in the Organics group of the Materials Library has been updated with a small correction.
The following problems have been fixed:
Ctrl-c, ctrl-x, and ctrl-v did not work properly in the Notes tabs.
Pasting z-direction data into a bi-refringent material did not always work correctly.
Added Graded Layers to the Design editor. A graded layer is a layer whose refractive index varies linearly (with physical thickness) from the refractive index of one of its surrounding layers to the refractive index of the other layer. To create a graded layer, insert a layer into the design. Make the Medium Type column visible by selecting Display Setup in the File menu and checking Medium. In the Medium Type cell, select Graded. Only the thickness can be set for a graded layer. It may be physical, optical, or geometric. Graded Layers can also be specified in a Formula.
Added Cone Angle to Reverse Engineer. Where a design has sharp features and especially at significant incident angles, the cone angle of a spectrometer beam can have a substantial impact on the measured results. Reverse Engineer can now include these effects. To make the calculations tractable, the cone calculation in Reverse Engineer is much more simplistic than the calculation used in Stack, it is calculated as the average of five incident angles within the cone.
The following problems have been fixed:
When replacing a missing design and machine configuration in an existing runsheet, the runsheet did not update the sources if the source names had changed.
Sometimes the runsheet did not update the monitoring wavelength for all layers on the same chip when one wavelength per chip was checked.
The following problem has been fixed:
The incident angle on the Design display was not updated when the incident angle was changed in the plot parameters for designs with thick layers.
Added back reflectance calculation to CalculateTable and CalculateArray methods for the Design object.
The following problem has been fixed:
Statistics Table color data did not store the correct Hue value.
The following problems have been fixed:
When plotting selected layers, unselected layers between selected layer on the same chip were plotted.
Loading old Runsheets with missing designs and machine configurations was difficult to complete successfully.
The following problem has been fixed:
When a key has been assign to Step Over or Step Into and the key is held down so that it repeats, at the end of the script, the next repeat of the key would cause the script to start at the beginning again. Now at the end of the script a message is displayed.
The following problem has been fixed:
Using Freeze in Active Color Plots caused an error.
The Design window now supports thick layers. A thick layer is a layer that does not support coherent beam combination. This allows you to model in one file a structure that previously could only be modeled using a Stack and one or more Designs. A thick layer in a Design corresponds to a medium in a Stack. Using a thick layer in a Design requires two extra columns. These are displayed by selecting Medium Type in Display Setup. The first column is Medium Type. This controls whether the layer is a thick layer or thin layer. If Medium Type is blank, then the layer is a thin layer. If the Medium Type is Parallel or Wedged then the layer is a thick layer. Parallel and Wedged have the same meaning as in Stack. The second column is Medium Thickness and is the thickness of the thick layer. This is in more convenient units than the thin layer thickness units (typically mm). Once a design has thick layers the phase calculations and Analysis calculations are no longer available.
A new command Create Design has been added to the Edit menu for Designs. This command makes it easy to extract a set of thin layers from a design containing thick layers. The resulting design can be used by the analysis functions. To extract a set of layers, select one of the thin layers in the set and then select Create Design from the Edit menu. A new Design window will appear containing the thin layers. The medium and substrate will be set to the surrounding thick layers or medium and substrate of the initial design if there are no thick layers.
A new command Reverse Design has been added to the Edit menu for Designs. This command is similar to Reverse Layers except that it always reverses all layers. It also swaps the Incident Medium and Substrate. Finally the incident angle is changed so that the incident angle in the new medium is the same as the exit beam in the old substrate.
Simulated Annealing can now refine refractive index through the packing density parameter. A separate initial and final standard deviation is provided for the index refinement. For absolute changes in index refinement, a new random number is added to the current packing density for each layer. Relative changes are performed in the same way as for layer thicknesses.
Display Setup has been changed so that the column names now appear as a sub-menu of Display Setup and not in a separate window. Clicking on a column name toggles the display of the column on and off. The menu remains displayed until you either click on Close or click somewhere else in the program.
The Default Design… command in the Options menu has been changed to Set as Default Design. This new command does not require the design to have been saved before
Added two forms of Silicon Carbide [SiC (cubic) and SiC (hex)] to the Semiconductors group in the Materials Library.
Moved the existing Gallium Nitride material from the Dielectrics group to the Semiconductors group in the Materials Library and added an extra Gallium Nitride material.
Added the following properties to the Design and Stack objects for Simulated Annealing index refinement:
InitialDensityStandardDeviation
FinalDensityStandardDeviation
AnnealingDensityChanges
The SimplexRefineMode property also controls thickness and index refinement for Simulated Annealing.
The F5 key now starts the script in the script editor.
Step Into and Step Over now start at the Main subroutine in the script editor if debugging has not been started.
The following problem has been fixed:
The results from Stack.CalculateTable did not start at the specified X Axis minimum value.
The following problem has been fixed:
Plot statistics were not correctly calculated when the statistics range was inside a pair of points.
Coatings can now be exported to the VirtualLab program from LightTrans. To export a coating design, from the File menu, select Export and then VirtualLab Coating Data File. Enter the name of the file in which to store the data and click on OK. These files can be imported into VirtualLab starting with version 4.10
Added OKP4, OKP4HT and Zeonex E48R to the Organics materials library.
The speed of calculations has been improved.
The following problem has been fixed:
Sometimes Optimac refinement would fail in vStack.
The speed of loading files has been improved.
Birefringent Materials are now supported. The Materials editor has a new display enabled by clicking on Birefringent in the Edit menu. The birefringent material display allows you to enter optical constant data for the three principal axes. The x axis is parallel to the surface of the films and parallel to the plane of incidence. The y axis is parallel to the surface of the films and normal to the plane of incidence. The z axis is normal to the surface of the films. In the current implementation the orientation of the birefringent material is limited to these principal axes. In the Design editor, the substrate and thin film layers may be birefringent materials, but the incident medium must be isotropic.
References to encrypted data files are now recognized in the ZEMAX coating.dat file.
Reverse Engineer now attempts to call InitializeAdjust in a Material Model script. This allows you to check the material model parameters at the beginning of each adjustment.
The following problem has been fixed:
On some computers, the display of designs and other windows did not properly refresh when they were resized.
When importing a design from a Leybold LMR file, the reference wavelength of the design can now be set from the monitoring wavelength of the first layer. The substrate in the LMR file can also now be set as the substrate of the design.
The following problem has been fixed:
Designs imported from Leybold LMR files were upside down.
Added the ability to easily add and edit labels in plots. To add a label to a plot, move the mouse to the location where the label is to appear, then right-click and select Add Label… from the menu. The label text and location can be edited in the window that appears. When the plot cursor is active, you can add a label at the cursor location by right-clicking and selecting Add Label as Cursor… In this case, the Add Label window will appear. The label will be preset with the cursor location.
After a label has been added, it can be edited by double-clicking on the label. The Edit Label dialog will appear. In addition to the controls available in the Add Label window, the font used to display the label can also be modified.
Added a Statistics command to the plot. Right-click on the plot and select Statistics. You now have to define the X range over which the statistics are to be calculated. Move the mouse pointer to one end of the X range and then drag the mouse to the other end. When you release the mouse button, the statistics will appear. The minimum, maximum and mean over the X range can be calculated. Also X locations where a trace has a specified Y value can be determined by the Absolute Points parameters. Finally a bandwidth can be calculated.
Added Show all Hidden Traces and Show all Excluded Traces to the Edit menu for a plot. These command show all hidden and excluded traces respectively.
The following problem has been fixed:
Some windows did not display correctly when a custom dpi setting was used in Windows.
The following problem has been fixed:
Dynamic tooling factors could be saved in a Machine Configuration.
The following problem has been fixed:
When the Gaussian semi angle was 45 degrees, the cone calculation generated an error.
The following problem has been fixed:
The Statistics table for Errors showed zeroes when an active material was used in a design.
Added a 3d Electric Field plot to the Analysis menu in the Tools menu for Designs. See 3D Electric Field in the Analysis and Design Tools chapter of the manual for more information.
Edit Materials in the Edit menu for a Design will now update materials in the formula and the synthesis materials list with changes to material names. Also Edit Materials will now update void material names in the Design.
Scale Thicknesses in the Edit menu for a Design can now scale thicknesses for layers with selected link numbers or layers with selected material names. If material names are visible in the Scale Thicknesses dialog, then only layers using the selected materials will be updated. If link numbers are visible in the Scale Thicknesses dialog, then only layers with the selected link numbers will be updated.
The following problem has been fixed:
Independent Sensitivity did not correctly calculate the sensitivity values for a design.
Added the following scripts: Cubic Spline Interpolation, Degree of Polarization, Simulator Thickness Errors.
Added the following materials to the Semiconductors library: AMTIR-1, AMTIR-2, AMTIR-6, CLEARTRAN.
The following problem has been fixed:
Older Runsheets did not copy to the clipboard or save.
The Errors tool can now calculate the color properties for each of the perturbed designs that it generates. These color values can be saved to a file.
Color now has an Active Plot button. If a color patch is displayed, this will also be changed as the performance of the design changes.
Reverse Engineer now only warns once about extrapolation of material data.
The following problem has been fixed:
Reverse Engineer could not adjust a design containing layers with zero thickness. Reverse Engineer now removes zero thickness layers as the design is loaded into Reverse Engineer.
Reports can now call scripts to generate text, tables or plots. See Report Scripts in Implementing Scripts in the Scripting Language Help for more information.
A script can now implement an iterator for use in reports. See Report ForEachScript Statement in Implementing Scripts in the Scripting Language Help for more information.
PlotCreator can now be used to create bar charts. See the methods InitializeBarChart and AddBarSeries in PlotCreator in the Object Reference in the Scripting Language Help.
Reverse Engineer can now use a material model defined in a script. Now you can specify a material to have, for example, a Cauchy distribution, or any other distribution. Reverse Engineer will then optimize the parameters of the model during adjustment. Once Reverse Engineering is complete, a regular Material can be created from the model. See Example 6: A material model in Simulator Scripts in the Scripting Language Help for more information.
The following problem has been fixed:
When the Monitor Type of a layer was Wideband, the exported csv file layout was incorrect.
The following problem has been fixed:
Sometimes, after restoring a backed-up license and then running a later version installer, the installer did not correctly retrieve the Update Service expiration date.
Added GaN to the Materials Library.
The following problem has been fixed:
Sometimes, the vertical scroll bar on data tables was not correctly placed.
The following problem has been fixed:
Machine Configuration files would not save if there were no substrates defined.
The following problem has been fixed:
Normal incidence targets for Stacks were not always plotted when requested.
The following problem has been fixed:
When the independent variable was incident angle, the statistics table did not include all selected polarizations.
The following problem has been fixed:
Error calculations in Stack were not functioning.
The following problem has been fixed:
Using an X axis type of XFrequency in calculations did not work properly.
Minimum Packing Density and Maximum Packing Density limits can now be specified for each layer in the Design editor. Note that these limits are only effective in Simplex Refinement.
The Lock column in the Design editor can now specify packing density locking as well as thickness locking. Clicking in the Lock cell causes the lock state to cycle through the four possibilities: no locking, thickness locked, packing density locked, both thickness and packing density locked. Using the Lock commands in the Lock/Link menu, causes the lock state of the layers to cycle through the three possible locked states.
The overall Geometric Thickness limits and Packing Density limits on the Simplex refinement parameters dialog have been removed. These limits can easily be set by using the Global Edit command in the Edit menu of the Design window to set the limits for each layer. Note that either a Physical thickness limit or an Optical thickness limit can be specified. A geometric thickness limit cannot be directly specified.
The following problem has been fixed:
Sometimes the color calculation for designs would display slightly different results each time it was used on the same design.
The commands Move Module Up and Move Module Down have been added to the Edit menu of the scripting editor. These are used to put the modules in the correct order if module A uses a definition in module B but module B is lower in the module list than module A.
The following problem has been fixed:
Sometimes the dispersion data section used different material names that were used in the Monitoring Spreadsheet section.
The following problem has been fixed:
In the Substrate n,k T tool if data smoothing was selected, some wavelengths would be duplicated in the substrate results.
The script “AbsorptionCoefficient.bas” has been added. This calculates and displays the absorption coefficient for a selected substrate. This script will not initially be in the list of scripts in the Script Manager. To add it to the list, select Scripts from the Tools menu and then click on the Add button. Select the AbsorptionCoefficient.bas file in the file choose and click on Open. The script will now be at the bottom of the list.
Added the following materials to the materials library: VO2 (to the agile library) ATO and AZO to the dielectrics library.
The following problem has been fixed:
Only the last design in a Stack report was printed.
The following problem has been fixed:
Some types of plot were not fully plotted when plotted for the second time in the same plot window.
The plot window for Designs now keeps its size and location when it is re-used for a plot. Previously, the plot window would be re-opened with a default size and location.
In Reverse Engineer, the adjustment would sometimes terminate too early. An extra termination test has been added to improve the adjustment end point.
The Schott September 2009 and Sumita glass databases have been added to the materials library.
The following problems have been fixed:
If Reverse Engineer is working on a design that is displayed, you appear to be able to save the design using the name another of design that is also displayed. In fact, you cannot perform the save operation, but a message informing that you could not save the design was not displayed. The message is now displayed.
If you saved a design after Conjugate Gradient refinement and then closed the design, a message stating that the design had changed would be displayed. This does not happen now.
An option “Change Thicknesses to Match Angle” has been added to the Match Angle window. Previously when a match angle was set, all non-metallic layer thicknesses were always adjusted to the new match angle. When Change Thickness to Match Angle is checked (the default state), the layer thicknesses will be adjusted. When Change Thickness to Match Angle is not checked, the match angle will be stored, but existing layer thicknesses will not be changed.
The following problems have been fixed:
When layer thicknesses were changed in Global Edit, they were not modified according the match angle.
After a design was refined with Conjugate Gradient, if the design was closed but not saved and then re-opened, the design did not revert back to its form before refinement.
The following problem has been fixed:
Materials in the library could not be opened in Asian locales.
The following problem has been fixed:
Could not refine a design with color targets and then refine it again.
The material information supplied with the Essential Macleod has now been organized into a Materials Library. The Materials Library is installed on your computer and is also available on the web. The materials are still arranged into various groups, but it now possible to open multiple groups at once and sort by material name, refractive index and extinction coefficient across multiple groups. The Materials Library can only be modified by Thin Film Center. This makes it easier to update the library with new information. Existing materials databases are not affected by this addition and new materials databases can still be created as before. See Importing materials from the Materials Library in the Materials Management chapter of the user manual for more information.
A new feature – Jobs – has been added to the Essential Macleod. This makes it easy to multiple data areas that contain all information (designs, materials, reference files) for a client (if you are a consultant), for a project or other reasons. A Job also makes it easier to archive all information for a particular project as all Job data can easily be held in a single folder tree. See the Work Data Management section of the The Essential Macleod Structure chapter of the User Manual and the New Job, Open Job and Close Job commands in the Application Window chapter of the user manual for more information.
Essential Macleod files can now be dragged and dropped onto the Essential Macleod desktop. This is equivalent to using the Open command in the File menu, but sometimes is more convenient such as when the file to be opened is on the desktop.
Materials and Substrates can now be easily exported and imported by the Essential Macleod for transferring between different installations of the program. To export a Material, open the Material and then from the File menu select Export and then Material. You will be asked to enter a filename. After clicking on OK, the file will be created and contain all the Material information. The file can be imported by using the Open command in the File menu and changing the Files of Type parameter to be All Files (*.*). Next, select the exported material file and click on Open (you can also drag and drop the file onto the Essential Macleod desktop). The material will appear on the Essential Macleod desktop. If a material of the same name already exists, the name of the imported material will be modified so that there is no conflict. Substrates may be exported and imported in a similar manner.
The Target editor now includes the ability to add targets whose values are calculated by user-written scripts. When a merit figure is calculated, the regular targets are calculated and additionally, each script target is called. The returned value is added to the merit figure in the same way as a regular target. There is more information on Script Targets in the Scripting Help.
Reports can now include calls to a script to calculate information to be displayed in a report. A script can be used to generate a plot, a table, or some text. This allows you to include information in a report that was previously only able to be displayed in the Essential Macleod. See Report Scripts in the Scripting Help for more information.
Scripts can now save their own data in the Essential Macleod’s files. For example, a Design script could collect parameters from a user and save those parameters in the Design file for later use, or as convenience to the user by showing the last entered values. Scripts use a new object called a Bag to hold the data. There is more information on Bags in the Scripting Help.
The following problem has been fixed:
Add Line and Add Point have been re-instated in the Active Plot File menu.
The following problem has been fixed:
Add Line and Add Point have been re-instated in the Runsheet Active Plot File menu.
The default monitoring wavelength can now be an empty value. When you create a new Runsheet, this means that the reference wavelength of the design will be used to set the initial values for monitoring wavelength in the Runsheet.
Shortcut keys are missing from the Debug and Run menus. You
can either add the shortcut keys using the menu customization, or send us an email
and ask for the program that will update the script shortcut keys. The default key assignments are: Debug menu: Step Into: F8, Step Over: Shift+F8, Toggle Brreakpoint: F9, Clear All Breakpoints: Ctrl+Shift+F9. Run
menu Start: F5
The following problems have been fixed:
The performance calculation of a Stack with an illuminating cone did not complete.
An error occurred when attempting to get the Targets object from a Stack.
The following problem has been fixed:
Leybold LMR export always exported the data for the first chip in the Machine Configuration file, even if the second or subsequent chip was used in the Runsheet.
The following problem has been fixed:
Sometimes when plotting a transmittance curve after plotting color information, the transmittance curve will have a strange appearance.
The Leybold LMR export now uses the material name for both the name and material attributes in the LMR file.
The following problems have been fixed:
Sometimes after Optimac synthesis, with the synthesis window still open, plotting a design and then closing the plot caused the focus to move to the synthesis history window and not the design window.
After refinement, the stack window would indicate that coatings that were locked had been modified when they actually had not been modified.
Color can now be directly calculated in a script. To support this, there are two new objects ColorParameters and ColorData. The ColorParameters object contains the parameters that specify the properties of the color calculation. The ColorData object contains the results of the color calculation. For Designs, the color is determined by calling the CalculateColor method of the Design object. The Design object also has a new property ColorParameters which provides a copy of the color parameters in the design. Similarly, the Stack object also provides the CalculateColor method and the ColorParameters property. The Session object also provides a CalculateColor method. This used to calculate the color of a spectrum. The Session object also provides the properties ObserverList and SourceList. These list the observers and sources that are known in the program.
The script “Fringes” has been updated to use the new color calculation methods.
The script “Fringes II” has been added.
For Tables, Copy Columns and Copy Rows have been consolidated into one command. When rows are selected, rows will be copied to the clipboard. When columns are selected, columns will be copied to the clipboard.
The following problem has been fixed:
Maximize a design and then plot the performance. Close the plot. The menu did not display the commands for the design window.
Added Design Thickness to the CSV output file.
The following problem has been fixed:
When a Runsheet was saved and then opened, sometimes the columns displayed were changed.
Added Design Thickness to the CSV output file.
The following problem has been fixed:
When a Runsheet was saved and then opened, sometimes the columns displayed were changed.
The following problem has been fixed:
Changing the Incident Angle in the Design window and then plotting the design performance over an existing plot could show a curve with discontinuities.
The following problem has been fixed:
The Monitor Wavelength column could not be edited.
The Essential Macleod’s menu now has toolbars as well as the regular menu commands. Toolbars can be customized by the user, and toolbars may be added or deleted. Some commands now have associated icons. Where these commands appear in the toolbars, the icons will be displayed. If a command does not have an icon and is added to a toolbar, the command’s text will be displayed instead. The command icons are also user-customizable: An existing icon may be replaced by another icon. An icon may also be attached to a particular command. For information on menu customization please see Menu Customization in the Application Window chapter of the user manual. Some additional icons that can be used with the program have been included in the Extra Icons sub-folder of the installation folder.
The method of adding scripts to the Tools menu has changed. To add a script to the menu, from the Tools menu, select Scripts. In the Script Manager window, select the script to be added and then click on the Add to Menu button. Select the appropriate document that the script is used with and then click on OK. The script will appear at the bottom of the menu section. To remove a script from the menu, right click in an empty part of the menu and select Customize. Open the Tools menu and drag the script name off the menu. Click on Close in the Customize dialog. To change the position of a script in the menu, right click in an empty part of the menu and select Customize. Open the Tools menu and drag the script command to the desired location. Note that for both these operations, the appropriate document must open in the Essential Macleod otherwise the script command will not be displayed (Scripts in the General section are always displayed).
The following problems have been fixed:
Errors did not function correctly in Stack
The error parameters in color calculations were not always remembered when first used.
In the design formula, [] and {} can now be used as brackets as well as ().
The following problems have been fixed:
Sometimes the Color Parameters dialog was not displayed when attempting a color calculation on a table of data
For some oblique incidence designs, Needle synthesis would fail with an overflow error
For locales using “,” as the decimal separator, the formula created by the Edge Filter design tool was not recognized by the formula editor.
Export to Leybold LMR now includes tooling factors set in the Machine Configuration file.
The following problem has been fixed:
A polarization value could not be set in the color parameters dialog with a zero beam angle.
The following problems have been fixed:
Cone calculations with smaller Nominal Cone Segment Length values would sometimes cause crashes
Reverse Engineer sometimes did not properly adjust the design.
The import editor for Targets can now have the “Append to Existing Data” box checked by default. The default value is controlled in Options menu -> General -> Targets tab. Check “Append Imported Data (Default Setting)” to have “Append to Existing Data” box checked by default.
Tables for Admittance and Reflection Coefficient now include the Total Thickness as the first column of the table. This makes it easy to get a plot of the variation of the calculated parameters as a function of position in the entire design by selecting the column containing the desired parameter and clicking on Plot Column in the File menu.
The following problem has been fixed:
Current value calculations in the Target window of Designs would sometimes lock up.
The following problem has been fixed:
Plotting a substrate in the Import Substrate tool did not work.
Updated Export to ZEMAX with the current limits on information in a coating.dat file.
The following problem has been fixed:
Conjugate Gradient refinement would sometimes crash
Added the ability to add and delete targets in the Targets object (see AddTarget and DeleteTarget in the scripting help).
The Targets object can now get the Current Value and Contribution for each target (see GetCurrentValue in the scripting help)
The PlotCreator object can now use the second Y axis of the plot. It can also create HiLo plots, this provides a way of drawing tolerance bars on the plot.
The following problem has been fixed:
The Load ZEMAX Coating File command in the Tools menu did not work if there were no items open on the Essential Macleod desktop.
The following problem has been fixed:
In some cases where the materials used by a vStack were not in the current materials database, the vStack would not load.
Sometimes when a part is made according to the instructions in a Runsheet, the performance of the part can shifted in wavelength. There are many reasons for this, for example an incorrect tooling factor. Most of this can be corrected by calibration of the coating equipment. One reason that cannot be corrected by calibration is a shift due to noise in the monitoring system. The noise, in addition to causing a random variation in the performance, also cause a systematic shift in the cut point. This is normally corrected by altering the monitoring wavelength. Previously, it has not been possible to record this shift in Runsheet. Runsheet has been modified so that the shift can now be recorded.
An extra Monitoring Wavelength column has been added to Runsheet. The original Monitor Wavelength column has been renamed to “Monitor Wavelength [Calculation]”. The extra column is named “Monitor Wavelength [Actual]”. The value in Monitor Wavelength [Calculation] is used to provide the wavelength during Runsheet’s calculations of the expected signal variations. The value in Monitor Wavelength [Actual] is the value that is exported by Runsheet. Values in the Monitor Wavelength [Actual] column are optional. If the Monitor Wavelength [Actual] column does not contain a value, then the Monitor Wavelength [Calculation] column’s value will be exported. This means that the behavior of Runsheets created before this change will not affected.
The Report Generator for Runsheet has been updated to allow the Monitor Wavelength [Actual] data to be printed. The keyword “ActualWavelength” can be used to display or not display the Monitor Wavelength [Actual] column in the same way as “Wavelength” is used to control the display of the Monitor Wavelength [Calculation] column.
Simulator can now be instructed to use the Monitor Wavelength [Actual] values in a Runsheet instead of the Monitor Wavelength [Calculation] values. This is controlled by the “Use Actual Monitoring Wavelength” checkbox in the Calculation tab of the Simulator form. When checked, Simulator will use the values from Monitor Wavelength [Actual] column. If the Monitor Wavelength [Actual] column does not contain a value, the value in the Monitor Wavelength [Calculation] column will be used. When not checked, Simulator will always use the Monitoring Wavelength [Calculation] value.
The Runsheet object has two new methods to support modification of the Monitor Wavelength [Actual] value. These are GetActualMonitorWavelength and SetActualMonitorWavelength. See the Runsheet object in the Scripting Language help for more information.
The following problem has been fixed:
Negative beam angles could not be entered into the target generator.
The following problem has been fixed:
Refining a single color target in Stack did not always work.
When a file in the recent file list has been deleted or moved, the program will offer to remove the reference to the file from the recent file list when you try to open it.
The speed of Conjugate Refinement has been improved.
The following problem has been fixed:
Save substrate did not update the display if interpolation was needed during the Save operation.
The following problem has been fixed:
If mean polarization was checked and Reflectance Phase was the selected performance parameter, the columns of data the Table output were not correct.
The Essential Macleod can now make better use of multicore processors. Most calculations are now partitioned so that the separate parts can be run in parallel on processors with more than core. This dramatically improves the calculation time.
The optical constants plot in the Optical Constants tool is now labeled.
The following problems have been fixed:
If substrates are imported as part of a material import, the substrate list was not updated with the new substrate names.
If the merit figure for a design is zero and target contributions are displayed in the Target editor, the contributions for targets with a >= operator were not correctly displayed.
The Leybold LMR file now only materials actually used in a Runsheet. Previously it included all materials defined in the associated Machine Configuration.
The following problem has been fixed:
Could not save a Machine Configuration after deleting a chip.
It is now possible to add scripts directly to the Tools menu. Clicking on a script in the Tools menu will run the script. Scripts are added to the Tools menu by using the Script Menus command in the Options menu. There is more information on the Script Menus command on the Scripts page of the Scripting Language book in the Essential Macleod help.
The following problems have been fixed:
If optical thicknesses were in QWOT units, entering an optical
thickness in the Design Global Editor caused incorrect values to be entered in
the Design window.
In the Target generator, tabbing from the Step box to the
#Points box caused entered data in the Step box to be lost.
The following problems have been fixed:
Simplex refinement failed when index refinement using common
scaling was attempted in a design that included an active material.
Active Plot did not work with active materials
Added the ability to specify the number of wavelength points (and incident angle points) in the target generator (Targets window Edit menu -> Generate). Entering a number in #Points will cause the target generator to generate the number of targets and determine the step from the number of targets.
The following problem has been fixed:
There was sometimes an overflow in the color calculations
when they were being used to perform integrated performance calculations.
Added a note to the dialogs that display unknown materials and substrate. The notes state that the unknown materials/substrates might be defined in other materials databases.
The following problem has been fixed:
s-polarization was not correctly shown in the 3D plot for
stacks.
Added properties to the Design and Stack objects to support modifying refinement parameters in a script. RefinementConstants.bas file added to script folder to provide definitions for some of the properties.
The following problem has been fixed:
The software would stop working if the scripting help was
opened when the Essential Macleod help file was also open. The two help files
have been merged into one help file.
Added a More... button after the recent file list in the File menu. Click on More... to see a longer list of recently opened files. The order of files in the list can be modified by selecting a filename and then using the Up and Down buttons to reposition it in the list. The filename can be removed by clicking on the Remove button. The file can be opened either by double-clicking on the filename, or by selecting it and then clicking on the Open button.
The following problem has been fixed:
A new substrate that was saved could not be deleted until
the next start of the program.
The following problem has been fixed:
A Machine Configuration could not be saved after deleting a
source.
The following problems have been fixed:
When a new materials folder was created, it was not always
opened correctly immediately after creating it
Long path names were not truncated in the Import Materials
and Import Substrates dialogs
The Limiting Range for Merit Function values for Optimac, Simplex and Simulated Annealing refinement are now stored as separate values. Previously, all three refinement methods shared the same value. Typically Simplex performs much better with smaller values of Limiting Range for Merit Function than Optimac and Simulated Annealing.
The limit of 32767 iterations for Simplex, Simulated Annealing and Optimac refinement methods has been relaxed. The maximum number of iterations is now 2147483647.
The optical constants tool plots now have grid lines to make reading values easier. A legend has also been added to the plot to clarify the meanings of the traces and symbols. The View menu has a new item "Show Substrate". When checked, the Transmittance and Reflectance plots will include the performance of the uncoated substrate.
In the Options dialog (Options menu -> General), the paths for the Materials folder and Reference folder are now sized to fit the boxes in which they are displayed. Portions in the middle of the path are replaced with "..." to reduce the length of the displayed text. It is now not possible to type a new path name into the Materials folder and Reference folder boxes. If you want to create a new Materials folder or Reference folder, select Browse and use the Make New Folder button to create the new folder.
The following problems have been fixed:
The Cdbl function did not work in
custom merit functions.
The Val function did not work when passed an array element
of type String.
The following problem has been fixed
Inserting rows in the Target editor when targets were
displayed using Wavenumbers could sometimes result in negative wavenumbers
being inserted.
The following problem has been fixed
Export to CSV file now uses the list separator for the
locale rather than always using a comma.
The Dir function does not return filenames longer than 60 characters correctly. A function, EMdir has been added that will correctly return very long filenames. EMDir works in a similar manner to Dir except that the parameters must always be supplied. See the Scripting Language help Language Reference section for more information.
When targets were opened from a maximized design window, the targets window would oscillate from maximized to normal many times. This now only happens twice.
The following problem has been fixed:
When the Eddy Monitorlink is
enabled, a generic Machine Configuration always loaded as an Eddy Machine
Configuration.
CalculateMeritFigure has been added to the methods of the Design object. It returns the merit figure of the design.
Added a scatter model based on the work of J Merle Elson. To run the scatter model for a design, from the Tools menu, select Analysis then Scatter and then choose from a 2d plot or a 3d plot. See Scattering in the Analysis section of the manual for more information on the Scatter tool.
The error messages in Formula have been made more specific.
The following problem has been fixed
Sources could not be deleted from a Machine Configuration..
The following problem has been fixed:
A machine configuration for the Eddy optical monitor could
not be opened.
The following problems have been fixed
Notes were not loaded into a Runsheet
On opening a Runsheet, the last chip cell was selected
instead of the first.
When a Custom Merit Function is selected in a refinement parameters dialog, Use Custom Merit Function is now automatically checked.
Added Minimum Delay, Increment Proportion and Fast Increment Proportion controls to Active Plots. When the >, <, >>, << buttons on an Active Plot are held down, the Minimum Delay specifies the minimum time period in ms before the variable is incremented and the plot then updated. If the plot update takes longer than the Minimum Delay, then the next plot update will start immediately after the completion of the current plot update.
Each time the > and < buttons increment the value, the value is changed by Increment Proportion of the difference between the maximum and minimum values shown on the Active Plot. The default value is 0.01. That is, the value will change by 1% of the range between the minimum and maximum values.
Each time the >> and << buttons increment the value, the value is changed by Fast Increment Proportion of the difference between the maximum and minimum values shown on the Active Plot. The default value is 0.1. That is, the value will change by 10% of the range between the minimum and maximum values.
To modify these values, Select General from the Options menu. Click on the Active Plot tab and then click on the Speed tab.
The extra active plots controls described in the Core section above have also been implemented for Runsheet Active Plots. The same controls can be also be reached by selecting Runsheet from the Options menu, then click on the Active Plot tab and then on the Speed tab.
The following problems have
been fixed
Plots for one chip in Runsheet did not work when the
selected chip was not the first chip.
Active Plots showed a legend that included all materials in
the corresponding Machine Configuration and not just those used in the
Runsheet.
The following problem has been
fixed:
Target Linking now works correctly for Conjugate Gradient and
Quasi-Newton refinement..
The following problems have
been fixed:
Runsheets would not always open when a default Machine
Configuration was present
For some old runsheets, the
materials in the Runsheet would be displayed upside down.
The License window (Options menu -> License) now contains a Copy button that will copy the Site Code to the clipboard. It also has a Paste button that will paste the contents of the clipboard into the Site Key box and then validate the key.
A Machine Configuration object has been added to scripts.
A Runsheet object has been added to scripts.
A Simulator object has been added to scripts.
Simulator has been extended so that custom monitoring algorithms can be used. The Function enhancement is required to create and use custom monitoring algorithms. Simulator supports both narrow-band and wide-band custom optical monitors. Please see the section “Simulator Scripts” in the Scripting Language help file for more information.
The following problem has been fixed:
Copy to clipboard and Print in the registration form did not work.
The following problem has been fixed:
The escape key did not pause scripts when they were Run from the Script Manager..
Unwrap Phase has now been implemented for tables. The table results may differ from the plotted results especially if the table interval is large. Reducing the table interval will normally bring the table results into agreement with the plotted results.
The following problems have been fixed:
Reading a ZEMAX coating.dat file containing a material definition line with a trailing tab character did not work.
The background of the Current Value and Contribution columns in the Targets window has been changed to the system button face color (Some Windows Vista color schemes made the text very difficult to read)
Selecting a materials folder that did not exist in the Materials Import tool caused an error
The following problems have been fixed:
Print Targets did not work
If only one layer was present in the design, the Report would only show one material in the design, the substrate material would not be printed.
Added user-controlled formatting for the Weight and Contribution columns in the Targets window. Also added user-controlled formatting for the Packing Density column in the Design window. To adjust the formats, select General Units from the Options menu when no windows are open in the Essential Macleod desktop. Click on the named tabs to change the formats.
Added user-defined limits for Active Plots. Previously, the limits were defined in the software. Now the user can control the limits. To adjust the limits, select General from the Options menu and then click on the Active Plot tab. To adjust the limits for Runsheet Active Plots, select Runsheet from the Options menu and click on the Active Plot tab.
The following problem has been fixed:
Sometimes a message "Internal Error 16:" followed by a number would appear.
In the file choosers where it is possible to view files of different types, the All Files option is now at the top of the list.
The following problem has been fixed:
The stress tool result data was shifted by one column in the display.
The following problem has been fixed:
Runsheet files were slow to open.
Copying large tables to the clipboard is now much faster.
The packing density parameter can now modify the extinction coefficient as well as the refrctive index. By default, the behavior remains as before this version - packing density does not affect extinction coefficient. To enable the new model, select General from the Options menu and then click on the Designs tab. Check "Use Packing Density to adjust Extinction Coefficient" and click on OK. Now the packing density value will also affect the extinction coefficient. The variation of the extinction cofficient is linear. When the packing density is 1, the refrativei index and extinction coefficient will be that of the layer material. When the Packing Density is 0, the Refractive Index and Extinction Coefficient will be that of the void material (adjusted by the void packing density).
The following problem has been fixed:
When a material in the Normal context was changed to a different material, the design display was not updated with the new optical constants.
The material "Air" can now be opened in scripts, Its refractive index is always 1 and the extinction coefficient is always 0. The material cannot be modified.
The substrate "Lossless" can now be opened in scripts, Its internal transmittance is always 1. The substrate cannot be modified.
The following problems have been fixed:
Mean Back Reflectance could not be plotted.
An upper case “R” as well as lower case “r” now reset the plot to show the whole data range.
The adaptive plot did not always operate in the first part of the plot.
When the escape key is pressed, the Essential Macleod will call a function named “Interrupt” in the script. This function can be used to save data etc. The function has no parameters and must return a Long. If the return value is zero, then the script will continue, otherwise the script will be stopped. If the function Interrupt does not exist, a message will be displayed asking if the script should be stopped.
Scripts can now use the Windows File Chooser to get the names of files to be opened and names for files to be saved. See GetOpenFilename and GetSaveFilename in the Scripting Language Help file for more information.
The following problems have been fixed:
Pasting designs did not work.
Entering a target link number and then deleting it caused an error
The following problems have been fixed:
Interrupting a script by pressing the escape key and then choosing to continue the script did not work. The script was always interrupted.
When a table is displayed by the ShowMe method, the table did not get completely displayed until the end of the script.
Refinement will not now delete a layer that has a minimum physical thickness > 0
Check for updates now lets you view the change log for the new file
External column data can now be added to Designs, Targets, Materials and Substrates. Copy the data to the clipboard and then, in the Essential Macleod, select Paste Column from the Edit menu. The import editor will appear to allow you to specify the columns to be imported. after clicking on Finish, the data will be pasted into the existing data. Existing data of the same type will be replaced by the new data. Other data will not be altered.
The following problem has been fixed:
In some locales, copying a table column and pasting it into another table and then plotting the column gave an incorrect plot.
Scripts can now be run from the command line. The command line syntax is:
EMacleod.exe <scriptname.bas> [/object:<filename>] [/exit]
Where
scriptname is the filename of the script in the scripts folder
/object:<filename> - load the object (design, material, substrate, stack) first and run the script on it (so that ThisDesign etc are defined)
/exit - close the program after the script completes
The following problem has been fixed:
Stack reported duplicate targets when color targets only differed by operator and required value.
The following problem has been fixed:
The Design object did not calculate reflectance psi.
The following problem has been fixed:
Copy Layers was not functioning correctly..
The Design object can now calculate the 2x2 matrix of the design layers. This is provided by the CalculateMatrix method of the Design object. The results are returned in a MatrixDataSet object.
The following problems have been fixed:
In Reverse Engineer, the measurement plots did not print out in reports unless the file had been saved and then loaded again.
In Reverse Engineer, polarization was not correctly printed in reports.
A new tool – Reverse Engineer – has been added to the Essential Macleod. This tool helps you determine what was actually manufactured and how it compares to your design. To use Reverse Engineer you need the design that you expected to make and at least one spectrophotometer measurement of the manufactured part. Please see the Reverse Engineer chapter in the manual for more information on how to use Reverse Engineer.
Optical thickness limits have been added to the Design editor. They are used in the same way as the physical thickness limits, but are specified in optical thickness units.
The following
problems have been fixed:
Under some conditions, copying a design using contexts caused an error.
Unchecking automatic scaling gives the wrong range for the Y axis of Density
plots.
The following problem has been fixed:
The chip column was not always displayed when opening a Runsheet.
The following problems have been fixed:
The statistics table did not always function correctly when an oblique incident angle was used.
The plot of performance against layer optical thickness was not correct when the packing density was not equal to one
The Errors tool has been upgraded to include a statistics table output and a CSV file output of the spectra generated by the Errors tool when the statistics table output is used.
The following problem has been fixed:
The Leybold LMR export file sometimes used the comma as a decimal separator in locales where the usual decimal separator is a comma (it should always be a period in the lmr file).
The following problems have been fixed:
In some cases the second calculation of a color table or table after a color table was first calculated caused an error in Stack.
The Save dialog for the Report Template editor showed the word “Open” in the dialog.
The word “Materials” was incorrectly spelt in the Runsheet Display Setup dialog.
The following problems have been fixed:
The sensitivity distribution did not appear in all Windows locales
The items to be sorted in Targets changed each time the sort command was used.
It is now possible to import the unit definitions from one materials database to another. From the Tools menu, select General Units (this option will only be available when there are no open windows on the Essential Macleod desktop). Click on the Import button. Select the materials database containing the units you wish to use and then click on OK. The units will be updated with the units in the selected materials database. Click on OK to save the units to the current materials database.
You can now easily switch between a contour plot and a perspective plot for 3D plots. With the cursor in the 3D plot, right-click with the mouse. If the plot is currently a perspective plot, there will be an option labeled “Contour Plot”. Selecting this will change the plot to a contour plot. If the plot is currently a contour plot, the option will be labeled “Perspective Plot”, and selecting it will change the plot to a perspective plot.
The formula syntax has been upgraded so that thickness multipliers outside brackets are applied to layers inside the brackets. For example 2.3(HL)^3 would be interpreted as (2.3H 2.3L)^3 and 1.1(A 2.3(HL)) would be interpreted as 1.1A 2.53H 2.53L.
A coating machine will typically show a variation in deposited thickness across the area where parts may be coated The variation depends upon the location and form of the material sources and so the magnitude and variation will typically be different for each material source. In the coating machine (when properly calibrated and neglecting production errors) there will a location where the manufactured part will have the designed thicknesses. We will call this the Reference Location. Parts at some distance from this reference location will have thicknesses that are not the designed thicknesses caused by the non-uniformity of the coating machine. This will cause changes in the performance of the design. The Essential Macleod provides a simple one-dimensional linear model of uniformity that allows the impact of non-uniformity to be investigated. Each material has a Taper Factor parameter. In uniformity calculations, a Taper Distance is specified. During the performance calculation, the thicknesses of the design are modified as follows:
NewThickness = Taper Distance * Taper Factor * Layer Thickness
Where Taper Distance is in arbitrary units.
Taper Distance may have negative as well as positive values. Taper Factor may also be positive or negative. Uniformity calculations are available in 3D plots (choose Taper Distance for the x or y parameter) and in Active Plots for Designs (add the Taper Distance variable).
The color patch that may be generated during color calculations can now be copied to the clipboard and pasted into other documents. To copy the color patch, either select Copy from the Edit menu, or with the color patch window active, press Ctrl-C on the keyboard.
There are now two types of license available: a Transferable License or a Fixed License. A transferable license can be moved from one computer to another and has, up to now, been the only type of license available. A fixed license cannot be transferred from one computer to another, but you can make a backup copy of the license. A fixed license is only available for certain computers. Availability can only be determined after the key request has been made.
A Fixed license can be backed up to a separate location and restored to the computer in the event that the license data is lost. Also a fixed license is not sensitive to disk defragmentation whereas the transferable license must not be moved from its original location on the disk.
With the Essential Macleod running and no windows open on the Essential Macleod background window, select License from the Options menu. Then click on Backup License (Backup License will only be available if you have a fixed license). A folder chooser will appear. Select the folder where you want the license to be saved. This can be a location on your computer, removable storage or an accessible network location. Click on OK. A message will state that the license has been successfully backed up.
If the license is not present, you will see the Limited License message when you start the Essential Macleod. Click on the Restore License button. A folder chooser will appear. Select the location of the backup copy of the license and click on OK. When the license is successfully restored, the Essential Macleod will start.
The PlotCreator object can now set the plot to be a regular Cartesian plot or a polar plot. To set a polar plot use:
MyPlotCreator.PlotType = PolarPlot
To set back to a Cartesian plot use
MyPlotCreator.PlotType = CartesianPlot
The default type of a plot is CartesianPlot.
The definitions of PolarPlot and Cartesian Plot are contained in a new set of script files. Please contact Thin Film Center (info@thinfilmcenter.com) to get the latest script files.
The following problem has been fixed:
ZEMAX coating files were written using the decimal separator for the current locale when the period (“.”) should always be used.
The following problem has been fixed:
If the executable file (usually named Emacleod.exe) was renamed, the program would not run.
A new calculation method “CalculateBC” has been added to the Design object. This calculates the normalized tangential electric and magnetic fields of the Design. This complex field vector is usually written as the vector [B C]T in thin-film optics texts.
The following problem has been fixed:
Sometimes an unknown material in Formula was not converted, leading to errors when saving or refining a design.
The following problem has been fixed:
Sometimes an error would occur at the end of vStack refinement.
V8.13.89
Added absolute merit figure option to the Independent Sensitivity plot. This plot shows the minimum, lower quartile, upper quartile and maximum merit figures of designs generated.
A Show instruction has been added to the report generator for Designs, Stacks, vStacks and Runsheets. This instruction controls the display of columns in the printed report. See the manual for more information on the use of this instruction.
Added Color button to Errors form (Performance menu -> Errors). Clicking on this button will change the Errors form to the Color Errors form previously only accessible by selecting Color from the Performance menu and then clicking on the Errors button.
The following problems have been fixed:
Deleting a column in a table did not correctly adjust the column headers
The Total Absorptance table was not generated correctly
An extinction coefficient column has been added to the csv file output.
The following problem has been fixed:
Admittance plots were added to an existing plot when they should have replaced the existing plot
The following problem has been fixed:
Selecting Runsheet from the Options menu sometimes gave an error.
The following problems have been fixed:
Export to CODE V: Material names cannot be longer than 6 characters
Export to CODE V: Filenames with spaces were not enclosed in quotes in the seq file
Simplex Index Refinement was producing errors
A Help button has been added to the Script Manager. Selecting a script and clicking on this button will cause the pdf file with the same name as the script to be displayed. This requires that a pdf reader is already installed on the computer.
A Report Generator has been added. This feature allows you to control the data that is included in printed reports. A report template controls the data and formatting of printed output. Default templates in the current materials folder can be used to control the output when the Print command is used. Other report templates can be used by selecting the Print Report or Preview Report command. With these commands, you can select the report template to be used. For more information please see the Report Generator chapter in the Manual.
The following problems have been fixed:
Saving designs to new files after refining in Stack did not work correctly
Substrates with small wavelength intervals were not saved correctly
A thermoelastic stress model has been added to the Essential Macleod. The stress model calculates the stress in layers due to temperature changes as well as curvature and substrate deflection. Details of the model can be found in the Analysis section of the manual.
Back Reflectance has been added to the set of performance parameters that can be calculated in Designs. For non-normal incidence back reflectance calculations, the incident angle specifies the angle of the beam in the substrate. This applies to Back Reflectance targets for refinement and to back reflectance calculations in Stack.
The following problems have been fixed:
On some computers, color calculations did not work.
Target plotting for Density did not work
Calculating a table, closing the table and then calculating a table again caused an error
An inhomogeneity model has been added to the Essential Macleod. Inhomogeneity is represented by a single parameter (Inhomogeneity Factor) that specifies the total change in refractive index from the front to the back of a layer as a proportion of the refractive index of the material (including packing density effects) of the layer. For example if the refractive index of the layer is 1.3 and the Inhomogeneity Factor is 0.1, then the layer is inhomogeneous with the refractive index at the incident medium end of the layer being 1.235, and the refractive index at the substrate end of the layer being 1.365. Use File->Display Setup in the Design window to show the Inhomogeneity Factor column. The inhomogeneity factor is due to Abeles.
Color Rendering Index calculations have been added to the Essential Macleod. Color Rendering Index can be used both as performance parameter to be calculated and as a parameter for refinement.
Edit Sources and Edit Observers (programs used to defined sources and observers for color calculations) have been integrated into the Essential Macleod. Select General from the Options menu and click on the Sources and Observers tabs to maintain the lists of Sources and Observers.
Simulated Annealing refinement now includes linked layers.
Physical Thickness constraints have been added for refinement. Each layer in a design can have a minimum and maximum physical thickness specified. To see the thickness constraint columns, Select Display Setup from the File menu of the Design window. Check Minimum Physical Thickness and Maximum Physical Thickness and then click on OK. You can now enter thickness limits for each layer.
The trace editor for plots now includes a Swap Axis button. When a trace is pasted into an existing plot, it is always plotted with respect to the first Y-axis. Using the trace editor, you can now change a trace so that is plotted with respect to the other Y-axis, A trace plotted with respect to the first Y-axis will be plotted on the second Y axis after clicking on Swap Axis. A trace plotted with respect to the second Y-axis will be plotted on the first Y axis after clicking on Swap Axis,
Designs can now be exported to the FRED optical modeling software produced by Photon Engineering. To export a design, select Fred from the Export sub-menu of the File menu of the Design window.
Material and Substrate Import now includes the ability to automatically include the corresponding Substrate/Material, when a Material/Substrate is being imported. The Material and Substrate must have the same name for both items to be imported. This saves you having to remember to import the substrate definition after importing the material or vice versa.
The Material and Substrate import dialogs now give you more information about the material being imported. The Import Material window shows the optical constants for each material and you can also plot the optical constants by using the Plot buttons to the right of the materials list. The Import Substrates window allows you to plot the internal transmittance of a substrate by using the Plot buttons to the right of the substrates list.
The list of materials databases can now be maintained. Select General from the Options menu and click on the Data Sources tab. Click on the Maintain Folders tab. The Maintain Materials Folders dialog will appear. You can change the order of the folder list, remove folders from the list and add folders to the list.
Reverse Layers now will reverse just the selected layers in a design. Previously Reverse Layers always reversed all layers in a design regardless of whether some layers were selected or not.
Runsheet now plots the monitoring curves for each source in user defined colors. The colors to be used are specified in the machine configuration file in the Line Color column window of the Sources tab.
A Stack object has been added to the objects available in scripts.
A ReferenceFolder function has been added to the Session object for scripts. This allows you to determine the location of the Reference folder from a script.
Scripting now supports running a menu command from inside a script. The objects now provide a RunMenu function that executes the specified menu command.
The following scripts have been added:
Create CCT Illuminant
Performance with Illuminant
Figure Error
Run these scripts to see a description of the calculations that they perform.
The following errors have been fixed:
Notes could not be added to tables or references.
Using Edit Materials when some layers were selected gave an error.
Add Material Refractive Index and Design Thickness columns to the Runsheet. These columns are not displayed by default. To see the columns, use Display Setup in the File menu.
The following errors have been fixed:
On some computers, Runsheets could
not be opened by version 8.11.32.
Active plotting did not always operate correctly when multiple chips were used
in a Runsheet.
Added the ability to control the line styles used when traces are added to a plot. The default plot styles (Options menu -> Chart Styles) control the appearance of the first trace on the plot. When traces are added to the plot, the line style is changed so that the traces can be distinguished. After several traces have been added, the dotted line style will be used. This line style can often be difficult to see. The default plot styles form now includes the ability to stop the use of the dotted (or other line styles) when traces are added to the plot. To use this feature, check the line styles that you want to be used and uncheck the line styles that you do not want to be used. Note that the default plot line style does not have to use a checked line style.
The following error has been fixed:
Pasting or adding rows in the Target editor did not properly update the screen if target links were used..
Added the ability to format the data in the Runsheet. To set the formats, select Runsheet from the Options menu. Now select the Runsheet tab. The formats for the various types of data presented in Runsheet can be controlled here.
The following errors have been fixed:
On some computers, Runsheets could not be opened by version 8.11.32.
Active plotting did not always operate correctly when multiple chips were used
in a Runsheet.
The following error has been fixed:
Designs that were used in Stacks did not always update the Stack when the
Design was edited.
Added Export command for the Sigma Instruments SQC Series Comm program. This permits designs to be uploaded in the Sigma Instruments monitor.
Added Display Setup command to Runsheet. The displayed columns in a Runsheet can now be controlled by the Display Setup command in the File Menu. This command controls the columns displayed in the Runsheet and can also specify the columns to be displayed by default in new Runsheets by checking the Make Default box. The default displayed columns can also be specified by selecting Runsheet from the Options menu and then clicking on the Display Setup tab. The checked columns in the list will be displayed in new Runsheets.
The Errors tool has been updated to allow errors to be specified for each material in the design.
Errors may be specified for both thickness and refractive index for each material in the design. For thickness errors, there are three parameters: Thickness Mean Error, Thickness Standard Deviation and Minimum Thickness. The Thickness Mean Error and Thickness Standard Deviation specify the statistical properties of the normal population from which the random numbers for thickness errors will be drawn. For layers that are thicker than the Minimum Thickness, the error will be applied as a proportion of the layer thickness. For example, to apply a thickness error where the standard deviation is 2% of layer thickness and there are no systematic thickness errors, the following parameters are used:
Thickness Mean Error: 0
Thickness Standard Deviation: 0.02
Minimum Thickness: 0
In this case the thickness including error will be calculated as
ErrorThickness = LayerThickness + LayerThickness * RandomNumber
Another case is to apply an absolute error to the layer thickness that does not depend upon the thickness of the layer. For example, to apply a thickness error where the standard deviation is 2nm the following parameters can be used (providing no layer is thicker than 1000nm):
Thickness Mean Error: 0
Thickness Standard Deviation: 0.002
Minimum Thickness: 1000
In this case, the thickness including error will be calculated as:
ErrorThickness = LayerThickness + MinimumThickness * RandomNumber
With the values above, the standard deviation of the amount added to the layer thickness will be 1000 * 0.002 = 2 nm.
A combination of proportional and absolute errors can be achieved by correct setting of the minimum thickness. For example, to specify 2% thickness errors with a minimum thickness error standard deviation of 2nm, the following parameters would be used:
Thickness Mean Error: 0
Thickness Standard Deviation: 0.02
Minimum Thickness: 100
For layers thicker than 100nm, the thickness error will be calculated as
ErrorThickness = LayerThickness + LayerThickness * RandomNumber
For layers thinner than 100nm, the thickness error will be calculated as:
ErrorThickness = LayerThickness + MinimumThickness * RandomNumber
For layers thinner than 100nm, the standard deviation of the amount added to the layer thickness will be 100 * 0.02 = 2 nm
For refractive index errors, there are two parameters: Index Mean and Index Standard Deviation. The Index Mean Error and Index Standard Deviation specify the statistical properties of the normal population from which the random numbers for index errors will be drawn. For refractive index errors, the random number is added to the packing density of the layer to generate the perturbed refractive index for the layer, i.e.
ErrorPackingDensity = Packing Density + RandomNumber
Two new sensitivity tools have been added: Independent and Distribution. The Independent error tool shows a bar graph of the sensitivity of each layer to changes in its thickness or refractive index. The Distribution tool shows how the merit figure of the design varies as each layer is moved from its nominal value.
The Independent sensitivity analysis is a Monte Carlo method of assessing the sensitivity of each layer to thickness or refractive index errors. The tool generates a set of designs with errors according to the supplied error parameters. The merit figure of each design is calculated (using the refinement targets) and normalized by taking the Merit Function Power’th root of the merit figure (the Merit Function Power is specified in the refinement parameters). The tool then plots, for each layer, the difference between the upper quartile merit figure and the lower quartile merit figure. The larger this number, the more sensitive the layer is to errors.
The Distribution sensitivity analysis displays the variation of the merit figure as each layer is varied in thickness or refractive index. The size of the variation is determined by the error parameters. These are the same parameters as used in the Errors command For each layer the error term is varied from –2 standard deviations to +2 standard deviations. This range is divided into Number of Steps intervals. For each point the Merit Figure is calculated (using the current refinement targets) and normalized by taking the Merit Function Power’th root of the merit figure (the Merit Function Power is specified in the refinement parameters). The results of these calculations can be plotted on either a contour plot or a 3D plot
Targets can now be expressed as inequalities. For example, you can now set a target of Reflectance >= 90%. The inequality is specified in the Operator column.
Runsheet can now generate Active Plots. In these plots you can interactively change the tooling factor, monitoring wavelength and bandwidth of the layers and see the changes plotted immediately.
Leybold LMR and LDD data can now be imported and exported.
Material dispersion data are communicated in the Leybold Dispersion Data file. This file normally has a .ldd extension. To create an ldd file from an existing material, open the material. From the File menu, select Export and then Leybold LDD… A file chooser will be displayed. Enter the name of the ldd file and click on Save. This will write the material data into the file in the ldd format. The data in an ldd file can also be imported as a new material. To open an ldd file, select Open from the File menu. A file chooser will be displayed. Change the Files of type to All files (*.*). Select the ldd file and click on Open. The ldd material data will appear in a new material window.
Runsheet data are communicated in the Leybold Monitoring Repoprt file. This file normally has a .lmr extension. To create an lmr file from an existing runsheet, open the runsheet. From the File menu, select Export and then Leybold LMR… A file chooser will be displayed. Enter the name of the lmr file and click on Save. This will write the runsheet data into the file in the lmr format.
The data in an lmr file can also be imported into the Essential Macleod. The lmr file contains material data and the design. To open an lmr file, select Open from the File menu. A file chooser will be displayed. Change the Files of type to All files (*.*). Select the lmr file and click on Open. The Leybold Monitor Report window will appear. From this window, you can open the materials and design contained in the file.
A Table object has been added to the scripting language. This allows you to manipulate tables, and interpolate values from them.
The following problem has been fixed:
A subscript out of range error sometimes occurred when calculating the performance of a stack.
The following problem has been fixed:
In the optical constant extraction tool, the Delete Row command was sometimes grayed out when an item in the File menu had been used..
The following problems have been fixed:
Inserting a line at the beginning of a
material table cause the data one line below to be changed.
Adding lines to a substrate table and then saving the data sometimes caused the
data to change values.
The following problem has been fixed:
When exporting designs to ZEMAX, the relative thickness options actually exported absolute thicknesses and the absolute thickness options actually exported relative thicknesses.
The following problem has been fixed:
Function did not operate correctly when an Operation saved in the English locale was opened in the German locale.
The following problems have been fixed:
When entering material data, the wavelength units were not always correctly interpreted.
In Stack, if a design that was refined in Stack was replaced by another design, the Stack still used the refined design for performance calculations..
The following problems have been fixed:
Tables did not automatically show fractional wavelengths when the locale was not US-English.
Designs loaded from the Synthesis History did display the correct Reference wavelength and Incident Angle.
The following problem has been fixed:
Importing substrate reflectance without importing substrate transmittance caused an error when attempting to derive optical constants.
A check box "Auto Add" has been added to the Transmittance and Reflectance displays of the Optical Constants tool. When this is checked, the Add Point button is automatically clicked after a region has been selected for peak finding. If it is unchecked, the Add Point button must be clicked to add the data point to the table.
The following problems have been
fixed:
Using Scale Thicknesses in the Design
editor did not work when a range of layers was selected.
Notes stored in the default design did not
appear when a new design was created.
The following problem has been
fixed:
Using Save As to save a new material
definition to an existing material definition did not work correctly.
The following problem has been
fixed:
The
correct value of thickness was not displayed in the Target editor.
The following problems have been
fixed:
Target sorting
caused an error.
Designs
opened from the synthesis history were always titled “Design1”
Conjugate
Refinement ignored the update interval.
Design
notes were lost during refinement.
The DataSet, Admittance and ElectricField
objects now have interpolation functions.
The behavior for opening
Designs, Materials and Substrates has changed. Previously if you opened the
same design twice you see two separate copies of the Design. Now when you open
two copies of the same design, you will still see two windows, but they will
share the same data. If you change something in one design window, it will also
be changed in the other design window. This also applies to designs opened by a
script (see Function below). If a script opens a design that
it is already open in a design window, the script will modify the design
that already open in the design window. This behavior also means that you can
now see the effects of changes to changes to materials, substrates and designs
in other windows that use them without having to save the
material/substrate/design first.
Open a Copy Of command has been
added to the File menu. Open a Copy of loads the selected file into a new
window. Open a Copy Of does not retain the filename from which the data was
loaded so when you save the file, you will be asked for a filename in which to
save the data.
You can now calculate the color
of a spectrum in a table. Select the column in the table and then click on
Color in the Tools menu.
It is now possible to delete any
material or substrate in a Materials database. Select the Material (or
substrate) to be deleted and then click on Delete in the Edit menu. You can
also undelete deleted materials and substrates. Use the Undelete command in the
Edit menu to see the materials that can be undeleted. Creating a new material
will completely remove one of the deleted materials so you cannot rely on a
material always being in the deleted material list.
The thickness restriction in the
Symmetrical Periods design tool has been removed. The tool will also provide
alternative solutions where they exist.
A Design can now be exported to
a Code V sequence file. This command is in the Exports sub-menu of the File
menu.
The convergence of the
Quasi-Newton refinement method can often be improved by restarting the
refinement after it has performed several iterations. The parameter Recycle
Interval has been added to Quasi Newton refinement parameters. Quasi Newton
refinement will be automatically restarted every Recycle Interval iterations. If Recycle Interval is set to zero, then the
refinement will never be automatically restarted.
The behavior for pasting Targets
has been changed. Previously, when targets were added by the Paste command or
by Generate Targets, any duplicates that were created were automatically
removed. If you wanted to paste duplicates and make modifications so that they
were no longer duplicates, you could not do this because the duplicates would
be removed. You can now control this action so that it is possible to paste duplicate
targets and modify them after pasting. To change the behavior, select General
from the Options menu and then click on the Targets tab. If Remove Duplicates
Immediately is checked, then duplicate targets will be deleted as soon as they
are detected. If it is not checked, then duplicate targets will not be
automatically removed. A command Remove Duplicates has been added to the Edit
menu for Targets. Using this command will remove duplicate targets from the
Target window when Remove Duplicates Immediately is not checked.
The refinement methods are now
all using Minimum Merit Function Improvement to Update Plot. This parameter
which is in Conjugate Gradient and Quasi Newton parameters is now used by the
other Refinement methods too. The older methods of specifying when to plot have
been removed.
Substrates can now be sorted
alphabetically. To sort, choose a sort order from the Sort sub-menu of the Edit
menu.
The Import Substrates command
now has a browse facility like the Import Materials
command.
Function now includes scripting
language support.
The Function enhancement now
provides the ability to write scripts. The scripts are written in a language
that is very similar to VBA (the macro language included with Microsoft
Office). Currently scripts can operate on Materials, Substrates and Designs.
The Simplex, Optimac and Simulated Annealing methods now support Custom Merit
Functions. Custom Merit Functions replace the internal merit function with a
user written merit function using the scripting language. Information on the
Scripting Language is provided in the Scripting Language help file. To use the
help file select Scripting Language from the Macleod
program folder (Start Menu -> Program Files -> Macleod -> Scripting
Language Help).
vStack now calculates the total
phase response of all coatings in the vStack. This calculation shows the
contribution of the coatings to distortion of the wavefront. Phase changes in
the substrates cannot be included in the calculations as the thicknesses of the
substrates are not defined.
Active plots did not function
correctly when the x axis was layer thickness. This has been fixed.
Adding layers to a Design and
then reloading into Runsheet sometimes caused an
error. This has been fixed.
Generate Design did not function
correctly. This has been fixed.
Performance of the wavelength search
function has been improved again.
Performance of the wavelength
search function has been improved.
The OMS3000 Export did not
correctly check the Runsheet data. This has been fixed.
Optical constant extrema
selection did not work correctly when the units were set to absolute. This has
been fixed.
A new dynamic tooling factor
type has been added to Runsheet. You can now specify a tooling factor to be
used for each layer deposited by a source. To use this new tooling factor type,
create a 2 column table. The first column is the layer
number and the second column is the tooling factor to
be used for that layer. The type of the first column must be set to “Layer
Number” and the type of the second column must be either “Optical Tooling
Factor” or “Crystal Tooling Factor”. See the section on Dynamic Tooling Factors
in the Runsheet chapter of the manual for more information on creating tooling
factor tables. Setting the first column type to “Layer Number” means that the tooling
factor will be selected according to layer number, and
does not depend on the Dynamic Tooling Convention setting. Instantaneous or
Absolute tooling factor tables can be used together with Layer Number tooling
factor tables in the same Machine Configuration.
The performance of the monitor
wavelength search function has been improved.
The Macleod Turning Point
Sensitivity calculation did not work correctly. This has been fixed.
Optical Constant Extraction did
not print the table of extracted values. This has been fixed
Tables were not displayed
correctly in the German locale. This has been fixed.
The global editor for Stacks did
not work correctly. This has been fixed.
The global editor for Designs
did not use the correct optical thickness convention. This has been fixed.
Locked layers were not
recognized by Needle synthesis. This has been fixed.
When changing materials using the
Edit Materials command, the optical thickness of the layers will be held
constant if the optical thickness column is displayed otherwise the physical
thickness will be held constant. Previously the physical thickness was held
constant.
When pasting designs from
external sources, the thickness convention used now depends on the displayed
thickness columns. If the optical thickness column is visible, optical
thicknesses will be used. If the physical thickness column is visible and the
optical thickness column is invisible, then physical thicknesses will be used.
If only the geometric thickness column is visible, then geometric thicknesses
will be used.
The exported CSV file now
includes the refractive index of the monitoring wavelength at the end of each
row.
There is now an Absolute mode
for Dynamic Tooling Factors as well as the original Instantaneous Mode. In the
Absolute mode, the tooling factor is given by the value in the tooling factor
table. In the Instantaneous mode, the tooling factor is given by integrating
the instantaneous tooling factors in the table as described in the manual.
To set the Dynamic Tooling Factor mode, select Runsheet from the Options menu, select the Runsheet tab and set the mode as desired.
After opening a design, the Optical Thickness was always displayed. This has been fixed.
Two new Design display options have been added. Designs can now also be displayed with the Medium at the top, but layer number 1 is next to the Substrate and also displayed with the Substrate at the top and layer 1 next to the Medium.
When a design was displayed with the Substrate at the top, Copy Design put the same thickness value in all the thickness columns. This has been fixed.
Navigation in the tabular displays has been improved. If a cell is being edited, pressing an arrow key, enter key, or tab key will now complete the edit and move to the next cell. Previously this action took two key presses.
Plots can now have automatic intervals. You can now set a maximum and minimum value and leave the plot interval blank. When you plot, the software will automatically choose an interval.
When making changes to the Link column in the Design editor, the column was not always refreshed correctly. This has been fixed.
Error messages displayed by the Generate Rugate tool sometimes were repeated for each layer in the Rugate. They now only appear once.
The Compact tool did not remember the thickness convention. This has been fixed.
Sometimes an “Internal Error 124” would be displayed on starting the Essential Macleod. This has been fixed.
Optical Constants files with spectral data that had a magnitude scale of 0..1 did not save correctly. This has been fixed.
Reference Files did not load correctly in Locales where the “.” (period) was not the decimal point. This has been fixed.
Contexts have been added to Designs. Contexts support the concept of Agile Materials. An Agile Material is a material that changes its optical constants as a result of some external stimulus (for example an applied voltage) For each Agile Material the context specifies the optical constants to be used. As well as creating designs that use materials that do actually change optical constants due to some external stimulus, this feature can be used to create designs for use on more than substrate or where different materials can be substituted during manufacture.
Color calculations now support Dominant Wavelength (Wd), Complementary Wavelength (Wc), Excitation Purity (Pe) and Colorimetric Purity (Pc).
Color calculations can now show a color patch that displays the approximate color of the coating. If the color calculation includes an incident angle variation, this variation will also be shown on the color patch. If the color calculation includes errors, the variation due to errors will also be shown on the color patch.
Designs can now display the layer thickness in the three conventions simultaneously. Use File->Display Setup to specify the thickness conventions to be displayed. The optical thickness convention is controlled by a option in the Designs tab of General options in the Options menu. The convention may be FWOT (Quarterwave = 0.25) or QWOT (Quarterwave = 1).
The optical constant derivation tool can now accept absorbing substrates. The absorption is specified by either using transmittance and reflectance measurements of the uncoated substrate or by using existing material and substrate definitions.
The exported Runsheet CSV file now includes Monitor Type information.
A formula that was entered over several lines that included numbers with many decimal places did not always save correctly. This has been fixed.
Negative incident angles in Active Plots gave incorrect results.. This has been fixed.
If a design was updated from an Active Plot where the packing densities were not unity, the packing density column was not automatically displayed. This has been fixed.
When using rate data, the signal trace was sometimes plotted in a small region at the right of the Simulator window. This has been fixed.
When a design was copied and pasted into an external document, the Void Material and Void Density columns were swapped. This has been fixed.
Target plotting at normal incidence did not always work. This has been fixed.
Runsheet would sometimes calculate a negative signal minimum for a metal layer. This has been fixed.
Index plots did not work when the locale was set to Czech. This has been fixed.
A Design saved when the computer was set to Czech locale could not be opened when the computer's locale was changed to English. This has been fixed.
Various plots and tables did not correctly report the layer number when the design display order was set to Substrate first. This has been fixed.
Performance envelope calculation has been added to the analysis capabilities available for a design. Use Tools->Analysis->Performance Envelope to perform the calculation.
A Generate Design tool has been added to the Edit menu of a Design. This tool can be used to generate a more complicated design than can be produced by Formula. This tool is similar to the Generate Rugate tool.
The syntax of the Generate Rugate tool has been enhanced. The Condition part of a statement may now be an Expression and not just a Variable
Simplex refinement has an extra parameter: Recycle Interval. For some designs that take many refinement cycles, the convergence is often improved by recycling the simplex. This parameter forces the simplex to be recycled every Recycle Interval iterations.
A Perfect Retroreflector transfer function has been added to vStack. This transfer function reflects 100% of the beam back along the direction it entered the retroreflector.
Runsheet can now search for a monitor wavelength that will cause a layer to be terminated at a user-specified final swing value. The desired value is entered into the Final Swing cell. Right-clicking in the Final Swing cell displays a menu that allows you to search in increasing or decreasing wavelength for the next wavelength that will give the desired final swing value.
Function produced an error when no independent value was specified. This has been fixed.
Active Plot did not work correctly when both vertical axes were used. This has been fixed.
Admittance tables always reported thicknesses in nm instead of the current physical thickness units. This has been fixed.
When the spectral data for substrate n,k and T calculation was in descending wavelength order, the wavelength order in created material and substrate data was not always correct. This has been fixed.
Custom color plots were not correctly labeled. This has been fixed.
The arctan operator was returning angle values in units of degrees. It now returns angles in units of radians (the units used by all the other trig functions).
Pasting packing density values from an external source did not work. This has been fixed.
Automatic scaling for the 2nd axis of a Stack plot could not be reset. This has been fixed.
Substrate transmittance data in descending wavelength order did not import correctly in the optical constants tool, This has been fixed.
The 3D plot did not work correctly if different intervals were used for the x and y axes. This has been fixed.
In the optical constants tool, substrate transmittance did not always import. This has been fixed.
The Essential Macleod did not run on early versions of Windows 98 and Windows 95. This has been fixed.
Color could not be calculated for a stack unless a color calculation has been previously performed for a design. This has been fixed.
Added 3D Plot Capability.
Added Correlated Color Temperature and CIE 1960 uv color spaces
Improved the import of data from external text sources
Designs and Stacks can now export a filter file definition that can be used with LinkSIM
You no longer need to press <Enter> twice to complete editing in the cell of a grid and then move to the next cell.
Added two new binary operators “%” and “@”. These operators are used to search for value in an array of data and return the independent value. % starts at the beginning of the array and @ starts at the end of the array. They are useful for calculating properties such as –3dB bandwidth.
Crystal only Runsheets displayed messages stating that the Runsheet needed to be re-calculated. This was incorrect and is fixed.
Crystal only Runsheets could not be simulated. This is fixed.
The Export option has been removed. All data is now stored in the Runsheet.
“%d” did not show the page number in print outs. This has been fixed.
The cell selection did not display correctly in a table when the Read Only check mark was cleared. This has been fixed.
The Export for SC820 now saves the narrowband Runsheet data in a csv file as well as the wideband data.
License Transfers did not work correctly. This has been fixed.
Material Folders could not be created when there was a hidden folder in the path. This has been fixed.
Deleting a column in a table always reset the table to read-only. This does not happen now.
The Rugate Generator did not always save the Rugate formula. This has been fixed.
Rugate Generator error messages were sometimes repeated many time. This has been fixed.
Deleting a symbol specification in the Formula editor did not correctly update the symbol specifications for the remaining symbols. This has been fixed.
Using index refinement in Simplex did not work correctly. This has been fixed.
Designs now display the total thickness in the current thickness units
Total absorptance now calculates each layer’s absorptance as a function of wavelength, frequency or incident angle
A new feature – Active Plots – has been added to Designs. An active plot allows you to vary design parameters and see the effects in a changing plot.
Headers and Footers may now be defined for printed output.
A Print Preview option has been added.
The Formula Editor has been extended to allow more detailed specification of layers. Also a formula can now be entered on more than one line.
There is now a tool to help in generating rugate layer models.
Simplex refinement will now keep optical thicknesses constant when refining index and not refining thicknesses. When optical thicknesses are displayed in the design window, optical thicknesses will be held constant in refinement. When physical thickness are displayed in the design window, physical thicknesses will be held constant in refinement.
A notes page has been added to all the Essential Macleod documents. Previously, it was only available for designs.
The DWDM Assistant can now design narrowband filters for operation at oblique incident angles.
A new parameter Delta Ripple has been added. This indicates the sensitivity of a design to variation in tooling factor and incident angle. Designs with smaller Delta Ripple should be easier to manufacture than designs with larger Delta Ripple.
The adaptive plotting algorithm has been modified to improve performance for very thick designs.
Added Perfect Reflector as a new transfer mode to vStack.
Added Beam Rotators of 0, 90, 180 and –90 as transfer modes to vStack.
Users with proxy servers could not download updates. This has been fixed.
Using target tolerances less than one caused Conjugate Gradient refinement to generate designs with very thick layers. This has been fixed.
Errors occurred when trying to edit the targets of a stack when two or more layers of a design that is used in the stack were locked. This has been fixed.
Stacks using large cone angles did not calculate performance values correctly for large incident angles. This has been fixed.
Duplicate targets were not removed. This has been fixed.
The tooling factor errors were opposite in sign convention to the tooling factors. This has been fixed.
DWDM Assistant did not operate correctly when running in Windows XP Home edition. This has been fixed
DWDM Assistant froze when a ripple bandwidth of 0 was entered. This has been fixed.
Hue correlates were always reported in radians. They are now reported in Angle units.
You can now specify whether the medium or substrate is at the left end of a formula string.
Log(Reflectance) was missing from the plot parameters. This has been fixed.
Copy/Paste in thickness targets did not work properly. This has been fixed.
Second and subsequently generated tables produced when Keep old plots and tables displayed was not checked did not display their contents. This has been fixed.
The extrema points of reflectance data in absolute units were not correctly plotted in the optical constants window. This has been fixed.
Added wideband optical monitor calculations to Runsheet.
The monitoring chip number has been added to the csv file export for a Runsheet.
Added an Export option for the SC Technology 820 optical monitor
Design synthesis using the Needle method has been added.
Color calculations have been made more flexible. Any combination of color parmeters can be displayed in a single table. Any pair of color parameters may be plotted. Refinement targets may use parameters from different color models and use different sources and observers.
The licensing system has changed. Site Codes and Site Keys have a different appearance. Although we prefer to receive Site Key requests by email or fax, there is a phonetic representation for Site Keys issued over the telephone.
You can now drag-and-drop from one plot to another and you can drag a table column onto a plot.
Refinement targets for designs now include a total thickness target.
The Stack now includes the ability to calculate back reflectance parameters. These are magnitude, back reflected color. Refinement targets for stack also include back reflectance parameters
Automatic scaling in Admittance and Reflection Coefficient has been improved. Automatic scaling is on or off for both axes. You cannot specify automatic scaling on one axis and not the other.
Newlines in design notes sometimes appeared as thick vertical bars. This has been fixed.
Stacks containing designs with 20 or more layers would cause various errors. This has been fixed.
Calculating color immediately after a stack was opened caused an error. This has been fixed.
The extrapolation warning for a stack showed an hour glass cursor instead of a pointer. This has been fixed.
If a material was renamed, the change did not appear in the stack unless the stack was closed and re-opened. This has been fixed.
The plot cursor readout sometimes reported incorrect values for very sharp peaks in a plot. This has been fixed.
After deleting a column in a table, it was necessary to clear the table’s read-only status before further editing. This has been fixed.
Added the ISO9845-1 source for specular reflections to the reference file list.
Due to rounding off, some materials report that they have negative extinction coefficients. This has been fixed.
Extinction coefficients may now have negative values allowing the simulation of gain. To protect against accidental entry of negative values, the Allow Gain check box must be checked. To set the Allow Gain checkbox, select General Units from the Options menu when no windows are open and click on the Refractive Index tab. Allow Gain is defined for a particular materials database. If you move to another materials database, you may need to repeat the setting of Allow Gain
Synthesis in a vStack with no coating on one of the surfaces could result in an error. This has been fixed.
If a materials folder containing PlasmaCoat definitions was copied to another location and then used, it was not possible to save changes to the PlasmaCoat definitions. This has been fixed.
Back Reflectance has been added to Stack as a performance parameter and a refinement parameter.
When only a mean polarization plot was requested for a design, the p and s polarizations were also plotted. This is fixed.
Stack refinement did not always work. This is fixed.
The Merit Figure for Delta targets was not calculated correctly in Conjugate Gradient refinement. This is fixed.
Delta targets were not plotted when the Plot Targets checkbox in the Performance Parameters was checked. This is fixed.
To aid in setting up targets, the current value of a target and its contribution to the Merit Figure have now been added to the Target editor. To see these values, select Display Setup from the File menu and check “Current Value”
A warning is now displayed when a calculation or refinement would cause optical constant data to be extrapolated.
The smoothing options in the substrate n,k, Tint tool have been changed. A moving average filter is now used. The size of the filter is user-adjustable. Smoothing of the optical constant data has been removed. The moving average filter gives better results than the previous polynomial fit technique.
The Target editor used to show a polarization value for Delta targets. This was confusing since the calculation uses both polarization states. The value has been removed from the display. The value did not have any effect on refinement.
Absorptance rate calculations for incident angles beyond the critical angle could show negative absorptance rates. This is incorrect and has been fixed.
Simulated Annealing now supports linked layers.
The software update feature now supports proxy servers.
Quasi-Newton refinement would sometimes increase the Merit Figure. This has been fixed.
Two new refinement methods have been added for designs: Conjugate Gradient and Quasi-Newton. Both of these methods uses derivatives when determining the changes to be made to layer thicknesses. For some classes of designs, this results in faster convergence to the solution.
Support for checking for updates to the Essential Macleod has been added to the Essential Macleod. A command in the Help menu – Check for Updates contacts the Thin Film Center web site and looks for updates to the Essential Macleod. If there is a new update, you can then click on the Download button to retrieve the update and apply it to your computer. The General command in the Options menu has a new tab – Update. Here you can specify an automatic check for updates.
In some versions of Windows (particularly Far Eastern versions) files could not be saved in folders with names using characters not in the English alphabet. This version of the Essential Macleod will save files in those folders, providing Internet Explorer 4.01 SP2 or later is installed on the computer. If Internet Explorer is too old, then the Essential Macleod will not save to folders with names containing characters not in the English alphabet. Click on About the Essential Macleod in Help menu. If the version of Essential Macleod ends with “(ie)”, then it will work with all folder names otherwise the previous restrictions still apply.
There were still problems with using the Essential Macleod on computers that did not use . (period) for the decimal separator. This has now been fixed. You can change the separator back to the normal character (typically , (comma) in Europe) and continue working.
Derivatives are now calculated analytically (previously numerical methods were used). There is now only one Wavelength Delta Factor. This is used to calculate the first derivative of the optical constants.
If thermal data are missing when a calculation that requires thermal data is being performed, then a warning will be displayed.
The Stack now supports Gaussian beams in its cone calculation ability. A Gaussian beam can be specified by its semi-angle or its spot size. Although a Gaussian beam has no limit, you can specify a cut-off for calculations. This helps to speed up calculations for a small trade-off in accuracy. The cut-off is known as the Gaussian calculation scale factor. The angle range of the calculations extends to the product of the Gaussian calculation scale factor and the Gaussian semi-angle. The scale factor can be found on the Cone tab of the General options. (Options menu -> General). The default scale factor is 2.
A Plot Targets checkbox has been added to the Performance Parameters dialog. When checked, compatible refinement targets will be added to the plot.
The characters used to indicate extrema in the Runsheet are now user-definable. Click on Runsheet in the Options menu and then select the Peak Display tab.
GD, GDD, TOD and CDC have been added to the list of performance parameters that can be calculated.
Weight values in spectral response files were not always read in correctly. This has been fixed.
The Required Value and Tolerance for a target were not converted when copying the values to the clipboard. This has been fixed.
Plotting transmittance delta for some designs with very low transmittance caused the computer to lock up. This has been fixed.
The thermal properties were not included when a material was copied or imported. This has been fixed.
The plot cursor readout now displays up to 15 digits for the x and y values.
The Copy Runsheet command sometimes caused an overflow error in Japanese Windows. This has been fixed.
Some old format designs generated an overflow error when opened. This has been fixed.
The correct units for the ultrafast parameters were not used in the target editor. This has been fixed.
Layer numbering for Admittance diagrams always used the Medium at Top numbering convention. Layer numbering now depends upon the current layer numbering convention.
ZEMAX Coating.dat files that have lines with a single tab character were not loaded by the Essential Macleod. This has been fixed.
The ability to specify more than one maximum bandwidth has been added.
The meaning of Tolerance in refinement has been modified. Tolerances are now used to specify the relative scaling of target types. The difference between the target values and the actual value is divided by the tolerance. This allows targets that vary over a small numerical range to be treated with the same importance as targets that vary over a large numerical range by giving the small range target a small tolerance value.
Plots can now have a second y-axis. The plot parameters dialog has been updated to allow you to specify the performance calculated for the second y-axis.
Several enhancements have been made to the plotting capabilities. In the plot parameters dialog, you can select various plot parameters to be included in the legend for the plot. Plot characteristics are now available by double-clicking the mouse over the part of the plot that you wish to modify. For example, double clicking on the title, brings up a dialog that allows you to edit the title. Double-clicking on a line in the plot brings up a dialog that allows you to change the color, thickness etc. of the line. You can now assign a default template in the Plotting tab of the General option in the Options menu. The characteristics of this plot will be assigned to each plot created by the Essential Macleod.
The display setup for Design Windows, Target Windows etc. is now saved.
A temperature model has been added to the Design editor. The performance calculation can include a temperature offset. The materials editor has been enhanced to include the entry of information to support the temperature calculations.
Simulator now includes a peak-detecting optical monitoring algorithm as well as a overshoot optical monitor.
This new enhancement designs bandpass filters from a user-supplied specification. The Assistant designs bandpass filters using the method of symmetrical periods.
Added support for the Sycon STC-200 deposition monitor.
Scientific formats of the form 0.00E000 are not displayed correctly. The format should be 0.00E-000 or 0.00E+000. The manual and help have been updated with this restriction.
The leakage units have been changed to ppm/degree^2
Drawing the layout after refinement did not work. This has been fixed.
Added support for the Inficon IC/5 deposition monitor.
Refining L*a*b* targets in reflectance at oblique incidence did not work. This has been fixed
The L*a*b* plot did not plot the correct values. This has been fixed.
The menus would not drop down correctly in Japanese Windows 98. Several mouse clicks were often required to make the menu appear. This has been fixed.
The Essential Macleod would not operate under Windows 2000 if the user was a "Restricted User". This has been fixed.
The About box displayed "Analysis, Multicoat and Function" as installed enhancements when, in fact, none were installed. This has been fixed.
Path names with embedded "."s were not correctly recognized. This has been fixed.
If the same coating was used more than once in a vStack with different incident angles, then the performance calculations were incorrect. This has been fixed.
Co-refinement: delete co-refined vstack names, insert them and then refine - refine crashes - This has been fixed
When co-refining vStacks, the correct coating designs were not always saved. This has been fixed.
Negative Reflectance Delta targets did not refine correctly. This has been fixed.
The plot zoom function did not work in the optical constants window. This has been fixed.
Tables that had had some rows deleted were not saved when the Save command was selected. This has been fixed.
Negative Reflectance Delta targets did not refine correctly. This has been fixed.
The plot zoom function did not work in the optical constants window. This has been fixed.
Tables that had had some rows deleted were not saved when the Save command was selected. This has been
fixed.
Polarization could be specified for cross-polarization targets. This is meaningless and has been fixed.
Specifying p-polarization for a cross-polarization target caused refinement to crash. This has been fixed.
s-p Leakage refinement did not always operate correctly - This has been fixed.
The precision of the unit scale factors was affecting the accuracy of displayed results in the seventh and greater significant digits. This has been fixed. If you still see inaccurate value, you will need to reset the scale factors in General Units in the Options menu.
The Lock cell in the design editor did not toggle correctly when the design was displayed with the substrate at the top. This has been fixed
A design would request to be saved when it had not been edited. This has been fixed.
The Errors function in the Design editor now takes into account the state of Locking and Linking. Locked layers will change thickness and Linked layers will always have the same ratio of thicknesses.
If a legend was deleted from a plot, then the plot could not be exported. This has been fixed.
The cursor readout now operates smoothly between points. Linear interpolation is used to calculate a y value when the cursor is not at a calculated point. Previously the cursor jumped to the nearest calculated point.
Simulator now has a stop at layer feature. When in continuous simulation mode, Simulator will stop when it reaches a user-specified layer number.
vStack is a new enhancement to the Essential Macleod. It provides calculation and optimization capabilities for sets of coatings that are not parallel to each other. This enhancement includes new performance calculations such calculating the amount of p-polarized light that enters the system that exits as s-polarized light.
When the physical thickness units were not nm, the index profile plot did not display physical thicknesses in the correct units.
Under certain conditions, the delete and backspace keys did not operate correctly in the Design editor
Support for ZEMAX V9 coating definition files has been added.
When the cone angle was large (more than approximately 10 degrees), the p-polarized cone results were inaccurate. This has been corrected.
Simulator
The minimum monitoring thickness ratio was not loaded when a saved Simulator was opened. This is fixed.
The installer did not work correctly when installing the Essential Macleod onto a computer running Windows 2000. This has been fixed.
Toggling between Crystal and Optical monitoring in the Runsheet Monitor Type column did not work correctly. This has been fixed.
Clicking on the close button of the Simulator progress window at the end of layer caused an bad file name error. This has been fixed.
The Simulator parameters are now written to the Simulator log file.
The menus would not respond correctly when running in the Japanese version of Windows 98. This has been fixed
Copying and Pasting did not work correctly. This has been fixed
Some Runsheets could not be saved and loaded. This has been fixed.
Making Nominal cone Segment Length a small value would cause cone calculations to crash. This is fixed.
Added Macleod Turning Point sensitivity analysis for Quarterwave designs. See the Analysis chapter for more information
Added Chromatic Dispersion Coefficient calculations
Added Design notes
Added option to change display order of designs. You can select between Incident Medium displayed at the top or Substrate displayed at the top.
Added new thickness display option – QWOT. 1 QWOT = 1 quarter wave optical thickness.
Added ability to modify default plot styles. See the Application chapter for more information.
Added ability to copy plot background and fonts from another plot file into the current plot. See the Plot chapter for more information.
Added the ability to export Runsheet data to a comma separated value file format.
Added the ability to set Zero Offset and Gain by entering desired values of signal levels in the Runsheet.
Smoothing measured data in the Substrate n,k T tool caused an error. This has been fixed.
Oblique packing density was not correctly calculated when the incident medium was not Air. This has been fixed.
A V8.0 machine configuration could not be used as a default machine configuration. This has been fixed.
The optical signal for absorbing materials was not correctly calculated. This has been fixed.
Saving a Runsheet would sometimes result in an Array locked error message. This has been fixed.
Adding a source to an existing machine configuration caused an error. This has been fixed.
If a simulation was started with a Runsheet that had not been calculated, then Simulator would not respond. This has been fixed.
Toggling a layer between locked and unlocked did not work correctly. This has been fixed.
Saving a plot after it had been already saved caused the Save As dialog to be displayed. This has been fixed.
When non-contiguous rows were selected in optical constants and deleted, all rows in between the first and last rows were deleted. This has been fixed.
Optical Constant extraction did not always show inhomogeneous results when the inhomogeneous model was used. This has been fixed.
The first row of extracted optical constants was not printed. This has been fixed.
Pressing the escape key when displaying the optical constants data table sometimes deleted the last row of data. This has been fixed.
When opening a file for the first time after starting the Essential Macleod, the open file dialog did not start in the folder that was last used. This has been fixed.
When adding a plot with both left and right Y axes to another plot, the right Y axis was not added. This has been fixed.
In Herpin, if the Plot Gamma checkbox was cleared, the Gamma curve was still plotted. This has been fixed.
Substrate n,k, T extraction did not work if both transmittance and reflectance files were specified. This has been fixed.
If a material was saved with the same name as an existing material, then the material data was not replaced. This has been fixed.
A table can now be exported to a tab separated text file or to a comma separated value file. See the Export sub-menu in the File menu.
A plot can now be exported to a tab separated text file or to a comma separated value file. See the Export sub-menu in the File menu.
Editing operations for columns in a table have been added. Columns may be deleted, cut, copied and pasted. The independent (leftmost) column may be changed to be any one of the columns in a table. These features are in the Edit menu.
If a trailing \ was not present in the reference folder path, then calculations involving reference files (e.g. color) did not work correctly. This has been fixed.
Tabular output of color data did not work when layer thickness error calculations were also enabled. This has been fixed.
Adding a line from a version 7 plot did not work. This has been fixed.
If an operation is incorrectly entered, the syntax checker deletes the operation after finding the error. The syntax now leaves the incorrect operation ready for correction
Trying to display an array of data in single step mode gives a subscript-out-of-range error. This has been fixed.
Unit scaling did not work for the ultrafast parameters Group Delay, Group Delay Dispersion and Third Order Dispersion. This has been fixed.
Copying a design could sometimes fail. This has been fixed.
When running under Windows NT, the Essential Macleod could only be used by a user with administrator privileges. Now a standard user can use the Essential Macleod.
Some edited materials did not load correctly. This has been fixed.
Calculations at oblique incidence with non-unity packing density were incorrect. This has been fixed.
Printing materials did not work correctly. This has been fixed.
The Essential Macleod is now a 32-bit program. The 16 bit version of the program will continue to be available, but development will be focused on the 32 bit software.
Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.01 SP1 or later is required to use the Essential Macleod. The XML parser in Internet Explorer is used for saving and loading data files. For your convenience, Internet Explorer 5 is included on the Essential Macleod CD.
The plot engine has been replaced. The new plot engine has many more capabilities than the previous plot engine. Right click in the plot window to see the new parameters available for a plot.
The dll checks that used to be performed on startup are now user-initiated (Help menu -> Check DLLs). This gives a much faster startup.
The intervals used for generating the signal traces have been made smaller to improve the appearance of the plots.