Designing the next generation of photonic and quantum devices has long required engineers to make an uncomfortable choice: model the whole device or watch what individual electrons do inside it. A team from Singapore has now built a tool that does both at once.
Researchers from the Singapore University of Technology and Design and the National University of Singapore developed the new approach by expanding an existing computational method called particle-in-cell, or PIC, which was originally built to simulate plasma physics. They extended it with condensed-matter physics to create a single platform capable of simulating light-matter interactions across metals, semiconductors, and emerging quantum materials.
The research was published in Computer Physics Communications under the title "Particle-in-cell simulations of quantum plasmas."
The problem the team set out to solve is one that has slowed progress across fields including optical communications, artificial intelligence hardware, advanced sensors, and medical imaging. All of these technologies depend on photonic and semiconductor devices that precisely control how light and electrons interact. But existing simulation tools force a trade-off.
Associate professor Wu Lin from SUTD's Science, Mathematics and Technology Cluster put it this way: "For many years, researchers have had to choose between understanding how an entire device behaves and seeing what individual electrons are doing. We wanted to remove that trade-off. By extending an established simulation method rather than building a new one from scratch, we've created a framework that gives researchers a much richer picture of how light and electrons interact inside advanced materials."
The researchers compared the limitation to using a mapping application. Zoom out and you can see an entire city but not individual vehicles. Zoom in and you can track a single car but lose sight of traffic patterns across the whole city. Current simulation tools face the same kind of restriction. The new platform removes it.
Rather than constructing an entirely new simulator, the team built on PIC, which is already widely used and well understood by researchers in plasma physics. Adapting it to condensed-matter systems, rather than starting from scratch, means the tool can be adopted more quickly by engineers who are already familiar with the underlying method.
The practical applications extend across several fast-moving fields. Quantum computing hardware, photonic chips used in AI systems, and sensitive medical imaging instruments all stand to benefit from more accurate simulation during the design phase. Engineers who can model both the macro and micro behavior of a device before fabrication save significant time and resources.
