Source: http://www.pcgrate.com/news
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 20:54:09+00:00

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We issue PCGrate-S(X) 32/64-bit software with 2D scanning & 3D plots in the 6.7 release-version.
The large upgrade program is announced for an upgrade from any PCGrate®-S(X) v. 6.2, v. 6.3 or v. 6.4 software to any code from newest PCGrate-S(X) v. 6.6: (1) with big discounts (up to 40%%) or (2) with a 10% discount and v. 6.2–6.4 key retention including free one-year techsupport.
The time-limited offer is announced for an upgrade from any PCGrate®-S(X) v. 6.1 software to any PCGrate-S(X) v. 6.5 or v. 6.6 software with a v. 6.1 key retention.
Time-limited 50% discounts are announced for technical support of all PCGrate®-S(X) versions including v. 6.1 and v. 6.4-6.6.
Time-limited big discounts are announced for powerful PCGrate®-S(X) v. 6.5 32/64-bit software.
The prices of all the series and types of software from the new PCGrate-S(X) v. 6.5 cut down by more than 13.2%, in the average.
We issue PCGrate-S(X) 32/64-bit software in the 6.6 release-version.
PCGrate®-S(X) v. 6.7 32/64-bit software with many adds and improvements is available for a release as from March 18, 2019. PCGrate®-S(X) v.6.7 32/64-bit software has many adds and improvements in comparison with v. 6.6. In v. 6.7 the logic of scanning over different parameters was divided into two branches. First branch, which is 1D scanning is direct analogy of scanning functionality of previous versions, it allows only independent scanning over one parameter. The new feature 2D scannings – second branch – was added to this version. 2D scannings allow user to vary two parameters together in order to solve grating efficiency tasks. In version 6.7, the 3D Plots were added to better represent the results of 2D scannings mode solutions. The 3D Plots include same functionality as 2D plots for 1D scannings with some enhancements, such as meshes over the plotted surfaces with variable nodes’ density.
A lot of minor changes were implemented both in the code and the documentation.
Important: input and output data formats (grt- and pcg- types) were changed !
The TSMP-1 (Traveling SalesMan Problem) code is intended for solving the problem of the precise determination of the length and path of a minimal Hamiltonian cycle (cycles) of a weighed network (the Traveling Salesman Problem, the TSP) in a time that polynomially depends on the network's dimension (the number of its nodes); and it also relates to the construction (on this basis) of algorithms of polynomial complexity to solve so-called NP-complete problems of discrete mathematics. The research program including the source code and documentation can be obtained from the downloading page (TSMP-1.zip file). Input and output files from TSPLIB - Gerd Reinelt's library of TSP instances - are included in the package.
The large upgrade program is announced for an upgrade from any PCGrate®-S(X) v. 6.2, v. 6.3 or v. 6.4 software to any code from newest PCGrate-S(X) v. 6.6: (1) with big discounts (up to 40%%) or (2) with a 10%% discount and v. 6.2-6.4 key retention including free one-year techsupport.
The prices for such an upgrade, e.g., are: from PCGrate-S v. 6.2-6.4 XML to PCGrate-S v.6.6 XML - 2,799.2 Euros ($3,219.1); from S v. 6.2-6.4 GUI to S v.6.6 GUI - 3,749.3 Euros ($4,311.6); from S v. 6.2-6.4 Complete to S v. 6.6 Complete - 4,899.3 Euros ($5,634.2); from PCGrate-SX v. 6.2-6.4 to PCGrate-SX v. 6.6 XML - 6,999.3 Euros ($8,049.2); from SX v. 6.2-6.4 GUI to SX v.6.6 GUI - 9,749.4 Euros ($11,211.8); from SX v. 6.2-6.4 Complete to SX v.6.6 Complete - 11,999.4 Euros ($13,799.3).
Another possibility for the upgrade is to buy PCGrate-S(X) v. 6.6 with a 10%% discount such that you will receive a v.6.6 USB key and your current vv. 6.2-6.4 key is retained for use with PCGrate-S(X) vv. 6.2-6.4. Technical support of all versions (old and new ones) is included for one year to any upgrade of PCGrate-S(X) v. 6.2-6.4.
Click here to download PCGrate DEMO v.6.6 Complete.
Your current v.6.1 key is retained for use with v. 6.1 and you will receive a new key for v. 6.5 or v. 6.6. The prices for such upgrades, e.g., are: from S v.6.1 XML to S v.6.5 XML - 1,500 Euros ($1,725); from S v.6.1 GUI to S v.6.5 GUI - 2000 Euros ($2,300); from S v.6.1 Complete to S v.6.5 Complete - 3,000 Euros ($3,450); from SX v.6.1 XML to SX v.6.5 XML - 4,000 Euros ($4,600); from SX v.6.1 GUI to SX v.6.5 GUI - 6,000 Euros ($6,900); from SX v.6.1 Complete to SX v.6.5 Complete - 10,000 Euros ($11,500). Technical support of both versions is included to any upgrade of PCGrate-S(X) v.6.1 (for one year).
Click here to download PCGrate v.6.5 or v.6.6 DEMO Complete.
The prices for technical support of all the versions, series and types of PCGrate-S(X) cut down by 50%%. The action includes, but not limited, versions 5.1, 5.4, 5.5 and 5.6. Prices from April 6, 2015 for technical support of PCGrate-S(X) are: v.6.1 - 499 Euros ($574), v.6.4-6.6 - 999 Euros ($1,149). Technical support is included to any purchase of PCGrate-S(X) (for one year).
Click here to download updated PCGrate DEMOs Complete.
The prices of all the series and types of software from the modern PCGrate-S(X) v. 6.5 cut down by more than 27%, in the average. The price from January 22, 2015 for PCGrate-S series: XML-type software is 1,499 Euros ($1,874), GUI-type - 1,999 Euros ($2,499), Complete-type - 2,999 Euros ($3,749); and for PCGrate-SX series: XML-type software is 5,499 Euros ($6,874), GUI-type - 7,999 Euros ($9,999), Complete-type - 10,999 Euros ($13,749).
Click here to download updated PCGrate DEMO v.6.5 Complete.
The prices of all the series and types of software from the new PCGrate-S(X) v. 6.5 cut down by more than 13.2%, in the average. The price of updated from September 1, 2014 PCGrate-S XML-type software is 1,999 Euros ($2,599), GUI-type - 2,999 Euros ($3,899), and Complete-type - 3,499 Euros ($4,549). We allow additional discounts for earlier and permanent Customers.
This version enables the calculations both multilayer resonance and very small wavelength-to-period ratio cases at very high speed using two independent solvers based on the modified boundary integral equation method, i.e. Penetrating and Separating. The solvers have different behavior and mutually complementary capabilities for many difficult cases such as deep and shallow rough gratings and mirrors with very thin layers, grazing incidence, x-rays, and photonic crystals.
PCGrate®-S(X) v.6.5 32/64-bit series have three types: GUI, XML, and Complete. PCGrate®-S v.6.5 series codes have the minimal value of the wavelength-to-period ratio lambda/d of 0.02 and the maximal number of layers of the grating surface multilayer material of 20. PCGrate®-SX v.6.5 series codes have the minimal value of the wavelength-to-period ratio lambda/d of 2.E-13, the maximal number of propagating diffraction orders of 10,000, and the maximal number of layers of the grating surface multilayer material of 10,000. The PCGrate-S(X) v. 6.5 XML and PCGrate-S(X) v.6.5 Complete types make it possible to calculate the grating efficiency from the command line with input/output data in XML format. The PCGrate-S(X) v.6.5 GUI and PCGrate-S(X) v.6.5 Complete types make it possible to obtain the calculated data using the Graphical User Interface and work with the results including saving, coping, exporting, plotting, printing, etc. The type is determined by the HASP® HL USB key, which is shipped separately to the product.
PCGrate®-S(X) v. 6.6 32/64-bit software with many adds and improvements is available for a release as from August 1, 2014. The new optical mounting (“Fix Focus”) and relevant photon energy unit (“eV”) were added to this version. Fix Focus is an optical mount configuration for a reflected order where the reflected order is observed at a fixed ratio c of polar diffraction and incidence angle cosines that is used at x-ray-EUV synchrotron radiation sources in plane grating focusing monochromators. In version 6.6, the “E(-1) refl” and the “E(-1) trans” buttons were added to quickly plot efficiency of reflected/transmitted order #-1 graphs. If there are multiple suitable scanning parameters, then an additional dialog appears and you have to choose one. Conical diffraction algorithms to predict reflection grating efficiencies in short waves were substantially improved.
A lot of minor changes were implemented both in the code and the documentation. The last Sentinel® HASP HL driver installer was included to the version.
Important: input and output data formats (grt- and pcg- types) were changed ! In order to convert .grt files from PCGrate v. 6.5 32/64-bit software to .grt files for PCGrate v. 6.6 you can use the provided converter tool.
This work is part of research that has been pursued by the authors over a long period of time for the purpose of developing accurate and fast numerical algorithms, including the commercial packages PCGrate and DiPoG [12.1, 12.2] designed to model multilayered gratings having mostly one-dimensional periodicity (1D), including roughness, and working in all, including the shortest, optical wavelength ranges at arbitrary optical mounts.
The boundary integral equation theory or, briey, integral method (IM) is presently universally recognized as one of the most developed and exible approaches to an accurate numerical solution of diffraction grating problems (see, e.g., Ref. 12.3 and Ch. 4 and references therein). Viewed in the historical context, this method was the rst to offer a solution to vector problems of light diffraction by optical gratings and to demonstrate remarkable agreement with experimental data. This should be attributed to the high accuracy and good convergence of the method, especially for the TM polarization plane. It does not involve limitations similar to those characteristic of the Coupled-Wave Analysis (CWA), and it provides a better convergence. The disadvantages of this method include its being mathematically complicated, as well as numerous "peculiarities" involved in numerical realization. In particular, quasi-periodic Greens functions and their derivatives appearing as kernels in the integral operators require sophisticated lattice sum techniques to evaluate. Moreover, application of the IM to cases of heterogeneous or anisotropic media meets with difculties; however, with the volume integral method it is possible to overcome these difculties easily. Nevertheless, it is on the basis of this theory that all the well-known problems of diffraction by periodic and non-periodic structures in optics and other elds have been solved. In many cases it offers the only possible way to follow up in research. The exibility and universality inherent in the IM, in particular, enable one rather easily to reduce the problem of radiation of Gaussian waves or of a localized source to that of plane-wave incidence, for which scientists all over the world have a set of numerical solutions. Generalizations of the IM have recently been proposed for arbitrarily proled 1D multilayer gratings [12.4], randomly-rough x-ray-extreme-ultraviolet (EUV) gratings and mirrors [12.5, 12.6], conical diffraction gratings including materials with a negative permittivity and permeability (metamaterials) [12.7, 12.8], bi-periodic anisotropic structures using a variation formulation [12.9], Fresnel zone plates and diffraction optical elements [12.10, 12.11], and two-dimensional (2D) [12.12, 12.13] and three-dimensional (3D) [12.14] photonic crystals (inclusions) of some geometries, among others.
The IM is so pivotal that one can indicate the few areas where it can be modied and improved to solve particular diffraction problems. By convention they are: (1) physical model—choice of boundary types, boundary conditions, layer and substrate refractive indices, and radiation conditions; (2) mathematical structure—integral representations using potentials or integral formulas and a multilayer scheme; (3) method of approximation and discretization—discretization schemes, choice of basis (trial) and test (weighting) functions, and treatment of coincident points and corners in boundary prole curves; (4) low-level details—calculations and optimization of kernel functions, mesh of discretization (collocation) points, quadrature rules, and solution of linear algebraic systems; (5) implementation enhancements—memory caching, other implementation details. A self-consistent explanation of the existing IMs is beyond the primary scope of the present study. The main purpose of this Chapter is to present a complete description in general operator form of the two IMs applied to 1D multilayer gratings working in conical diffraction mounts and in short waves. Our study also includes the calculus of grating absorption in the explicit form and scattering intensity of randomly-rough gratings using Monte Carlo simulations. For other formal IM treatments and their comparisons, one should rather look to the references of this Chapter as well as to Ch. 4 and to references therein.
Various kinds of electromagnetic features of different nature can exist and be explored in complex grating structures: Bragg and Brewster resonances, Rayleigh anomalies and groove shape features, waveguiding and Fano-type modes, etc. In conical diffraction, the inuence of possible types of waves can be mixed. For the purposes of this Chapter, we chose three important types, among many others, of diffraction grating problems to include them in Section 12.9 "Examples of numerical results". They are: bare dielectric or metallic gratings of standard groove shapes working in conical diffraction in the resonance domain; shallow high-conductive or dielectric gratings of various boundary shapes, including closed ones, working in different mounts and supporting polariton-plasmon excitation or Bragg diffraction in the visible-infrared range; bare and multilayer gratings working in grazing-conical or near-normal in-plane diffraction in the soft x-ray-EUV range.
The book is published in World Wide Web: www.fresnel.fr/numerical-grating-book-2 . Click here to download the full Chapter text.
PCGrate®-S(X) v. 6.5 32/64-bit software with some improvements and a few minor bugs fixed is available for an update as from March 21, 2014. The version update supports Windows® 8(.1) and UAC “On” for users having non-administrative privileges. A few minor bugs connected with (1) conical diffraction calculus for Absolute plane borders in Separating Solver, (2) input (grt-type) file opening by double-clicking and (3) paralleling under plane sections for plane gratings were fixed in updated PCGrate®-S(X) v. 6.5 32/64-bit series. Export and import of Microsoft® Excel and text files in Border Profile Editor were extended.
Important: input and output data formats (grt- and pcg- types) were not changed !

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