Advanced scanning

Three features, one menu

Introduced in the 2016-05-06 release together with the x64 version, and refined through 2017, the Advanced Options menu adds a text section to the project structure that the user edits under rules given in its own comments. Formulas are interpreted with the muParser library.

• Advanced Scanning — a one-dimensional scan driven by a data table, or a one- or two-dimensional scan driven by equations. Column names refer to structure parameters; a column whose name starts with an underscore is used but not written out. The hexagonal-grating example scans a filling factor this way, a parameter no standard scan offers.
• Advanced Output — extra output columns computed by equations from the diffraction-order values and the scanning argument; the shipped example adds a column with the difference between the power balance and unity.
• Interdependent Parameters — parameters defined by formulas of other parameters, with three Littrow samples built in, so that a scan can hold the Littrow condition or any other relation while one parameter varies.

What it cannot do

In the words of the site's history: restrictions only apply to the parameters whose values alter the position of other parameters in the text structure (row and column indices). Everything else that has a value in the structure can be scanned.

Later additions

The 2020-12-18 release let Modal Collinear and Modal Conical scan the thicknesses of two different layers in two dimensions directly, which earlier needed advanced scanning; the 2022-12-08 release fixed the order of formulas in Advanced Scanning, and 2026-05-25 a bug that stopped advanced output working after a structure file was reloaded. Results of advanced scans are written to the text table and, since 2021, to JSON.

Advanced Options are a Full-edition feature: the Light edition computes diffraction efficiencies only.