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NewMats.rst

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Defining new materials

.. toctree::
    :maxdepth: 1

    Materials

There are two main ways to use a material which is not built in to the Solcore database, which can also be connected. They are:

  1. Downloading and using the database from refractiveindex.info
  2. Providing n and k data, and other parameters, to create_new_material

In order to control where custom materials get saved, you need to tell Solcore where to create and look for new materials by adding some entries to your user configuration file (by default, a hidden folder called .solcore_config.txt in your home directory):

  • Path the refractiveindex.info database will be downloaded to is set under [Others] with flag nk.
  • Path where n and k data will be saved is set under [Others] with flag custom_mats.
  • Path where the file containing parameters of custom materials will be created is set under [Parameters] with flag custom.

The following code snippet sets the location for each of these within a folder called Solcore, which is a sub-directory of your home folder (you could also manually add the correct paths to the config file).

import os
from solcore.config_tools import add_source

home_folder = os.path.expanduser('~')
custom_nk_path = os.path.join(home_folder, 'Solcore/custommats')
nk_db_path = os.path.join(home_folder, 'Solcore/NK.db')
param_path = os.path.join(home_folder, 'Solcore/custom_params.txt')

add_source('Others', 'custom_mats', custom_nk_path)
add_source('Others', 'nk', nk_db_path)
add_source('Parameters', 'custom', param_path)

Adding new materials to the database

.. automodule:: solcore.material_system.create_new_material
    :members:
    :undoc-members:

The correct format for the n and k files are tab or space separated text files, with the first column the wavelength in metres and the second column n or k. The file containing other parameters should take

When you add a new material to the database, a new folder will be created for it as a subfolder of the path specified in your (user or default) configuration under the custom_mats path. The n and k data files you provide will be copied into that folder (they are renamed automatically). Any other parameters you supply will be copied into the file specified under the custom path.

Using refractiveindex.info

.. automodule:: solcore.absorption_calculator.nk_db
    :members:
    :undoc-members:

Before the first use, you will need to download the database:

from solcore.absorption_calculator download_db
download_db()

download_db takes two (optional) arguments: the URL of the database to be downloaded, (default is the most recent, hardcoded into the function), and how many interpolation points to use when saving the database (default is 200).

The code which is used to download and get data from the refractiveindex.info database is based on code from Hugo Guillen.

You can now directly use materials from the .db file created this way by referencing them via their pageid. To locate which database entry you want to use, you can search the database; the code below searches the database for entries matching 'Diamond' and then uses the pageid of the first result to create an instance of this new Diamond material. In general, though, it is a good idea to check explicitly which of the database entries is appropriate (e.g. in terms of the wavelength range, and which type of data is available) rather than simply using the first result.

results = search_db('Diamond')
Diamond = material(name = str(results[0][0]), nk_db = True)()

Adding materials from refractiveindex.info to the database

There is a convenient function, create_nk_txt, to generate the n and k data files needed to add a new material to the Solcore database directly from the downloaded refractiveindex.info database:

results = search_db('Diamond')
create_nk_txt(pageid=results[0][0], file='C_Diamond')
create_new_material(mat_name = 'Diamond', n_source='C_Diamond_n.txt', k_source='C_Diamond_k.txt')

This searches the refractiveindex.info database for entries matching 'Diamond', and then creates files with the n and k data from the first matching database entry in the format required by create_new_material.