Chatoyant: a computer-aided-design tool for free-space optoelectronic systems

Chatoyant is a tool for the simulation and the analysis of heterogeneous free-space optoelectronic architectures. It is capable of modeling digital and analog electronic and optical signal propagation with mechanical tolerancing at the system level. We present models for a variety of optoelectronic devices and results that demonstrate the system's ability to predict the effects of various component parameters, such as detector geometry, and system parameters, such as alignment tolerances, on system-performance measures, such as the bit-error rate. (C) 1998 Optical Society of America.