Discussion Forum

Hi German,

Have you considered using symmetries of your geometry to reduce the model's size?

It seems that the holes follow a regular pattern, so depending on your equations you might be able to divide the model size by a factor of 4.

Best wishes, Alexis

Suggestions/thoughts: 1. For some of the things you want to calculate, might it be possible to model the mirror without the holes? If so, I strongly recommend that you consider doing that. 2. Do you have any reason to believe that any of the phenomena of interest to you are periodic, and tied to the periodicity of the holes, and/or the wavelengths of illuminating radiation? If so, consider modeling a "unit cell" containing (for example) one hole, and leveraging periodic boundary conditions. Also, take a good look at Floquet boundary conditions, which may be appropriate to employ (depending on the physics and periodicity involved, if any) here. 3. Even if there is no well-defined periodicity you can use, have you considered combining bulk-level approximations (e.g., physical optics) with separately-modeled/understood detailed local interactions, with only the latter being computed using the finite elements in Comsol Multiphysics? For example, once you understand how a piece of surface with a single hole responds to various conditions of illumination, you may then be able to represent (such as via an integral) how a surface with an array of such holes responds, via superposition of the responses of individual patches/holes.