World-beating programs for solving 2 and 3-dimensional electrostatic problem

The Boundary Element Method, BEM, deals with surface charges and has many advantages over the methods used in almost all other commercial programs. The programs were developed by Profs Frank Read and Nick Bowring, in the group at Manchester University which was the first to use the BEM in electron optics and which produced the definitive book Electrostatic Lenses, by Harting and Read. Frank has been joined by Ryan O'Neill, working on the further development of the software.

The programs have been described as the gold standard of charged particle optics. The CPO programs are exceptionally accurate and have many advanced options that are not present in other programs. If you would like to be kept up to date with new releases, please consider subscribing to our (very infrequent) newsletter .

The CPO programs:

• Are easy to use and have a detailed and comprehensive on-line help system
• Feature a large number of easy-to-use options, such as automatic iteration for focus optimization
• Tailored to your needs with a 2-dimensional version (CPO2D) for axial or planar symmetry, 3-dimensional version (CPO3D) for all other systems
• Enable manipulation of electrodes that can be scaled, moved, rotated, stretched, squashed, cropped or copied and repeated
• Very clear and comprehensive with an on-line help system and tutorial videos.
• Available in 32 and 64 bit versions.

The BEM provides outstanding accuracy and flexibility:

• No mesh or nodal points, only surface charges on electrodes
• Many advantages over other methods, including accuracy and speed
• Large number of benchmark tests to prove high accuracy and reliability
• Automatic sub-division of electrodes to suit shape
• Ideal for for small electrodes in the presence of much larger electrodes

Powerful Space-Charge and Cathodes versions:

• BEM is ideally suited for space-charge and cathodes, since the BEM is charge-based
• Cathodes of every shape and size can be easily defined
• Menus for several different cathode emission types, from thermionic to field-emission
• User-defined emission properties also available
• Deals with global space-charge spreading and also particle particle stochastic scattering
• Careful and successful method of damping iterations