Performance of Nanoring-based Transparent Conductors: a Computational Investigation. Simulation code + output datasets + plotting scripts

Abstract

Simulation code + output datasets + plotting scripts for publication "Performance of Nanoring-based Transparent Conductors: a Computational Investigation." (https://doi.org/10.1002/pssa.70408) This study was supported by the Special Research Fund (BOF) of Hasselt University using BOF numberBOF24OWB29. The resources and services used in this work were provided by the VSC (Flemish Supercomputer Center), funded by the Research Foundation- Flanders (FWO) and the Flemish Government. The C++ simulation How to use the simulation? Compiling the code (minimal example) First, make sure you compile the .cpp files to get an executable file. You can do this in multiple ways, using multiple operating systems and multiple compilers. Below is an explanation of how to do so on Windows using the gcc compiler and a terminal. For this to work you need to install the g++ compiler first. Open a terminal and navigate to the "src" folder, where all the .cpp files are listed. In this folder, use a command such as this one: g++ *.cpp thirdparty/ini.c -o simulation.exe This command uses g++ to compile all .cpp files in the current folder (src), together with the ini.c file that is placed in src/thirdparty. Finally, this command creates the executable "simulation.exe". Running the simulation When you have succesfully compiled the simulation program, you can use the following command to run a simulation: ./simulation.exe run.ini This command should start a simulation using the parameters in the run.ini file, which should be placed in the same folder as the simulation.exe (or you need to adjust the command above). The ini files should have the same layout as the file input_template.ini, which you can find in the src folder. That's it! You can look at some settings of the simulation using the -h or --help flag when running simulation.exe. The .ini file This file contains all parameters of the simulation. This section goes over the different parameters in this file and what they mean. You should know that all values in this file are in SI units. [Simulation] V_diff: The voltage difference between the left and right sheet boundary. Right boundary is at ground. sheet_width and sheet_length: Sheet dimensions rng_seed: Seed of the random number generator inside of the program. If set to 0, the program will generate a random rng seed. This means that each time you run this simulation, it will give different networks as the rings are placed at different locations. If set to a positive number, the random number generator is seeded with this seed. This results in reproducable simulations. Note that even when you enter 0 here, the randomly generated seed is logged in the .log file, so you can always look it back up. mode: Simulation mode. Enter either "default" or "integrity" here. "default" mode will calculate everything up to the total sheet resistance. "integrity" mode will start breaking down the network (integrity tests) afterwards. integrity_model: model used for integrity tests. Use "Charvin_current" or "Charvin_power" for current-based or power-based breakdown respectively. nr_sims: Amount of simulations with identical parameters. Note that if this is set to >1, some features may not be available. Use this to calculate large amounts of transparencies and sheet resistances. [Rings] n: percolative filling factor. This is equal to N * pi * r^2 /(LxW) with N the amount of rings, r the ring radius, L and W the length and width of the sheet. r: ring radius. [Material] rho: wire resistivity A: wire cross-sectional area R_j: junction resistance [Output] In the Output section, you can toggle which data you want to have outputted or not. Setting output_transparency to false will skip the calculation of T entirely, granting a speedup. Licenses and Copyright The C++ simulation (in the src directory) is licensed under PolyForm Noncommercial License 1.0.0This code uses work from others:- To solve matrix equations, it uses the Eigen library, which is licensed under Mozilla Public License Version 2.0- To parse ini files, it uses the inih repository from Ben hoyt, which is licensed under the New BSD license. Copyright (c) 2009, Ben Hoyt.- To write json files, it uses the json repository from Niels Lohmann, which is licensed under the MIT License. Copyright © 2013-2026 Niels Lohmann. The Python visualisation code and the accompanied data/figures are licensed under the MIT License. © 2026 UHasselt. All rights reserved. Developed within the Theory Lab research group by Gijs Vanoppen.