Export functions

The export functions take the list of simulation objects, the simulation folder path, and several tool-specific arguments to produce files and scripts to run simulations in an external simulation software. For the details of the tool-specific arguments, please see the API of each function:

export_ansys(),

export_elmer(),

export_sonnet().

Ansys export

Before exporting the Ansys simulations make sure that the ANSYS_EXECUTABLE parameter in kqcircuits/defaults.py matches with your Ansys version and installation location. The Ansys simulations are developed and tested with both Windows and Linux installation of the latest Ansys Electronics desktop.

The following example script shows a typical usage of the export_ansys() function. The script generates simulation subclass, creates a simulation object, exports Ansys scripts into a directory, and finally shows the simulation geometries in Klayout viewer.:

from kqcircuits.qubits.swissmon import Swissmon
from kqcircuits.simulations.single_element_simulation import get_single_element_sim_class
from kqcircuits.util.export_helper import get_active_or_new_layout, create_or_empty_tmp_directory, \
    open_with_klayout_or_default_application
from kqcircuits.simulations.export.simulation_export import export_simulation_oas
from kqcircuits.simulations.export.ansys.ansys_export import export_ansys

sim_class = get_single_element_sim_class(Swissmon)  # Builds a simulation class for Swissmon

layout = get_active_or_new_layout()
simulations = [sim_class(layout)]  # Generate the simulation with default parameters

# Create an empty folder for simulations in KQCircuits/tmp/swissmon_simulation_output
dir_path = create_or_empty_tmp_directory("swissmon_simulation_output")

# Export simulations for external simulation software
export_parameters = {
    'path': dir_path,  # path for the directory is the only mandatory parameter for the export functions
}
export_ansys(simulations, **export_parameters)

# Export the simulation geometries as OAS file and view in Klayout (optional)
open_with_klayout_or_default_application(export_simulation_oas(simulations, dir_path))

The above script can be run as a regular python script, or in the KLayout macro editor. After the execution, the output files are written to a folder in the KQCircuits tmp directory.

The export_ansys function produces files and scripts needed to run Ansys simulations. First, it copies the folders scripts/simulations/ansys/ and scripts/simulations/post_process/ into the simulation directory. The first folder contains needed IronPython scripts to run simulations in Ansys Electronics Desktop and the second includes post processing scripts that can be run after the simulations. Then it exports x-y-shapes as GDSII file and other meta-data in json format for each simulation. Finally, it creates a batch file for running all simulations in series.

The simulations can be run by executing the simulation.bat script file.

More examples of simulation scripts are available in klayout_package/python/scripts/simulations.

Elmer export

The Elmer simulations are developed and tested with Linux systems. Running the simulations requires installation of

Gmsh python API pip install gmsh or in secure mode pip install -r path/to/sim-requirements.txt
Elmerfem solver, see https://github.com/ElmerCSC/elmerfem
Paraview https://www.paraview.org/

The usage of Elmer simulation export is very similar to Ansys export. In the above export script, the only change is to replace “ansys” with “elmer” in all occurrence, that is, in these two lines:

from kqcircuits.simulations.export.elmer.elmer_export import export_elmer
export_elmer(simulations, **export_parameters)

Similarly to export_ansys, the export_elmer copies the Gmsh and Elmer script folder scripts/simulations/elmer/ and post-processing script folder scripts/simulations/post_process/ into the simulation directory. It exports x-y-shapes as GDSII file and other meta-data in json format for each simulation and creates a script file for running all simulations in series.

The Elmer simulations can be run by executing the simulation.sh script file.

Note

The export_elmer and export_ansys functions take different set of arguments, so the export_parameters must be specified for the functions separately. The list of simulations and path are the only common arguments for all export functions. More details of Gmsh and Elmer parameterization and simulations are explained in Gmsh/Elmer export.

Sonnet export

The Sonnet export is incomplete, but there is a possibility to export limited geometries for Sonnet simulations. Once the simulation objects are created, the function export_sonnet can be called in very similar manner to the other export functions.

For example in the above Ansys export script, replace “ansys” with “sonnet” in all occurrence, which is these two lines:

from kqcircuits.simulations.export.sonnet.sonnet_export import export_sonnet
export_sonnet(simulations, **export_parameters)

The export_sonnet function internally calls function export_sonnet_son for all simulation objects. This exports each simulation into a .son file. For more information, we refer API for export_sonnet().

Geometry from Klayout GUI

An alternative way to export simulations is to draw the geometry (place elements or draw manually) in KLayout, and run one of the following macros.

Similarly, the simulation instances can be created from an existing KLayout Cell cell in code:

simulation = Simulation.from_cell(cell, name='Dev', margin=100)

These methods export the geometry, but do not add any ports to the simulation. Hence, this can be useful if you want to manually create ports or make other changes for example in Ansys.