LightWave Studio
A tool for a visual and intuitive understanding of wave physics.
The new app LightWave Studio by KSOP alumnus Dr. Mauno Schelb is an interactive wave optics simulation for smartphones and tablets. On modern devices LightWave Studio calculates electromagnetic waves in 2d fluently at 30fps, while giving the possibility of moving optical elements and inserting light sources by finger on the device screen.
The app is mainly targeted towards physics students and teachers/professors at high schools and universities. But it can also be interesting for anyone using optical tools as well as anyone who is generally interested in physics.
With more than 40 wave optics experiments to work through, from simple ones like the double slit to complex ones like e.g. photonic crystal waveguides, LightWave Studio yields a lot of content for students, professionals and other physics-interested people to gain a visual understanding of wave optics.
Apart from the preconstructed ones, experiments can also be custom made directly on the device or they can be prepared on the PC and afterwards loaded into the mobile device. Information on how to do this is supplied on the LightWave Studio-website (link at the bottom).
Besides an accurate wave optics simulation, LightWave Studio employs an interactive and color-rich approach to the user interface and the visualization of electromagnetic waves. In this way, LightWave Studio takes up the task to deliver a great visual experience while at the same time drawing attention and interest towards physics and optics, particularly for high school and undergraduate students.
Technically, LightWave Studio employs the Finite Difference Time Domain algorithm for calculating the dynamics of Maxwell's equations in two dimensions. The algorithm is multithreaded, yielding higher performance on modern devices with multiple CPU-cores. The calculated fields are displayed on the device screen with one out of several colormaps to choose from.