PyIndexRepo

This package gives access to the refractive index data from RefractiveIndex.info.

The focus of this package is to provide a convenient interface to the data, and be efficient in the calculation of (temperature-dependent) refractive indices.

Usage

Basics

from pyindexrepo import RefractiveIndexLibrary

db = RefractiveIndexLibrary(auto_upgrade=True)
bk7 = db.search_material_by_page_name('N-BK7')[0]  # returns a list of different BK7 glasses
print(bk7.get_n(0.5875618))

When executed for the first time, the database from the RefractiveIndex Github Repo will be downloaded and converted to a python object. This process takes a few minutes. Consecutive calls will load the database object from a local file (almost instantaneously).

Auto-upgrade of the library is supported, but switched off by default.

There are two main classes that allow interacting with the data: the RefractiveIndexLibrary class and the Material class.

Temperature data

When temperature data is available, the refractive index of a material can be queried at any temperature within the valid temperature range:

import numpy as np
from pyindexrepo import RefractiveIndexLibrary

db = RefractiveIndexLibrary(auto_upgrade=True)
bk7 = db.search_material_by_page_name('N-BK7')[0]  # returns a list of different BK7 glasses
wl = np.linspace(0.4, 0.7, 10000)
print(bk7.get_n_at_temperature(wl, temperature=30))

[1.53088657 1.53088257 1.53087857 ... 1.51309187 1.51309107 1.51309027]

Installation

pip install pyindexrepo