An Oxford company, founded in 1992, that makes the software photonics engineers use to model and design lasers, chips and optical components before they are built.
Photon Design writes simulation software for photonics, the technology of light. Before a laser or an optical chip is manufactured, engineers use programs to test on a computer how light will behave in it, which saves months of trial and error. The company's tools include FIMMWAVE, a waveguide mode solver, FIMMPROP for light travelling in both directions through couplers and gratings, PICWave for lasers and photonic integrated circuits, Harold for semiconductor lasers such as VCSELs and quantum dot devices, OmniSim, EPIPPROP and Kallistos for optimising designs.
Photon Design was founded in Oxford in 1992 to give the photonics industry professional-quality software. Its website describes its products as world-leading tools for modelling active and passive photonics components and circuits. It reports customers in 30 countries and in hundreds of research labs. Recent news from 2026 includes the release of Harold 7.4, with updates for nitride lasers and quantum dots, and a faster quantum dot run time. We did not find a longer mission or values statement.
The company is based in Oxford. In September 2025 it announced that its Oxford team was growing to include Application Engineers, to meet rising demand for its simulation tools. Dr Dominic Gallagher, the chief executive, described the role as a hybrid of sales, product management and engineering. The new team members start by supporting the PICWave and Harold laser products, bridging customers and the software roadmap, giving expert simulation help and feeding customer ideas back to the developers. Total headcount is not published on the pages we read, and the company looks small.
The company says it wants bright, creative people to join a talented team in Oxford. Every product comes with 12 months of free technical support and updates, and it runs regular online training courses, so supporting customers is part of daily work. The jobs page asks for photonics experts, particularly those who have written computer models of physical systems. Those are company statements, and a small firm of this kind is likely to give each person a wide range of responsibilities.
If you enjoy physics, maths and computer programming, Photon Design shows a way to combine them. Roles on the site include software developers who write the numerical models, application engineers who help customers, and technical sales and product specialists. A degree in physics, engineering or computing is a common starting point in such a role, but the pages we read did not list requirements. The business model, selling software across the world from Oxford, also shows that UK hardware companies are not all factories.
Website: photond.com
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