General

In Description box, you can type a comment line.

In Material Type box, you must select the material type.

Isotropic

The refractive index is constant in direction but it can vary with the wavelength.

Birefringent

Warning: Birefringent material could only be used with optical polished surfaces. Two birefringent materials cannot be in contact.

This material has different refractive index associated with different crystallographic direction.

There is a reference in which this matrix is diagonal and whose diagonal elements correspond to the refractive index for different directions of the reference.

  • In Additional properties box, you must select Uniaxial negative, Uniaxial positive or Biaxial.

  • In Vector I and Vector J boxes, you must set coordinate values for Vector I and Vector J.

Note: The reference in which the matrix is diagonal is the same one that the global reference.
Figure 1. Dielectric tensor sample

Fluorescent

The material includes fluorescent dyes.

The fluorescent material usage is the same as any other material. The only difference is that you can enter fluorescence specific data as absorption spectrum, re-emission spectrum, quantum efficiency, measure concentration and user concentration.

In Fluorescent tab, you can Add or Delete pigment. You can click to edit measured or user concentration. Measured concentration is the dye concentration when the fluorescent dye has been measured. User concentration is the concentration defined by the user for simulations.

Warning: Concentration unit has to be the same for both concentrations. As a reminder you can type the used unit in the comment line of the dye.
Note: You can double-click dye to edit pigment properties. For more details, you can view Dye Editor.

Metallic

The metallic material correctly interacts with polarized light. Since the polarization is taken into account, the material's reflectance changes when the incidence angle varies.

When you apply this material to a part, the reflection automatically takes the effects due to polarization into account.

Note: It is not the energy penetrating the material which is calculated here, but only the reflected energy. The metallic material type cannot be used to model thin metallic coats.

The Absorption variation and Scattering properties tabs are displayed but are of no use for the Metallic material type. You do not need to set them as their definitions have no effect on the Metallic material type.