Electro-Optical/Adaptive Optics Engineer

Salary Range: 120000 to 180000 (Currency: USD) (Pay period: per-year-salary)

Responsibilities:

• Develop and implement optimization routines for the adaptive optics control loop, and characterize their performance against measured data. 
• Design and implement algorithms for spatial beam shaping using phase plates and adaptive optics. 
• Align, calibrate, and operate adaptive optics hardware on a high-energy laser system, including deformable mirrors, wavefront sensors, and supporting diagnostics. 
• Build auto-alignment methods and routines to make beamline setup repeatable and fast. 
• Characterize the optical environment — aberration sources, thermal drift, vibration and jitter, beam path turbulence — and translate what you find into adaptive optics requirements. 
• Leverage and improve wave-optics propagation code to model the laser systems, in close collaboration with the Xcimer Theory and Computation team, and anchor those models against measurements so predictions can be trusted. 
• Contribute to wavefront error budgets and tolerance analyses spanning system to component level. 
• Collaborate closely with vendors to develop and drive the next generation of AO platforms for Xcimer’s needs, with a focus on deformable mirrors and wavefront sensors. 
• Work with control system engineers to integrate AO within the larger laser control system, helping define required controls, interlocks, and operator feedback/UI. 
• Write and maintain the test plans, alignment procedures, and calibration records that let others reproduce your results. 
• Maintain contamination-control discipline appropriate to deep-UV, high-fluence optics

Qualifications:

• Education: B.S. in optical science/engineering, physics, or a related field. 
• Experience: 5+ years of optical science/engineering experience, including 3+ years directly related to adaptive optics systems. 
• Experience developing adaptive optics systems using wavefront sensors and deformable mirrors, including established optimization and reconstruction methods. 
• Experience with high-fidelity physical wave-optics propagation in the near and far field. 
• Experience with hands-on optical subsystem integration and alignment. 
• Experience working across multidisciplinary engineering fields including optical, opto-mechanical, software, and controls systems. 
• Working proficiency in at least one of MATLAB, Python, or C/C++/C# for modeling, analysis, and hardware control. 
• Must be a U.S. citizen or national, U.S. permanent resident (current Green Card holder), or lawfully admitted into the U.S. as a refugee or granted asylum. 

Desired:

• M.S. or Ph.D. in optical engineering/science, physics, or a related field. 
• 5+ years of experience directly related to adaptive optics. 
• Depth in several of the following: turbulence characterization in beam paths; wavefront reconstruction and control law design; radiometry and imaging diagnostics; statistical and systems analysis; experimental work with high-energy laser systems. 
• Experience with high-energy optical systems operating in the deep UV, including laser-induced damage considerations and contamination control. 
• Experience designing adaptive optics coupled to beam pointing and jitter stabilization systems. 
• Experience defining and flowing down adaptive optics requirements from system to component level. 
• Familiarity with real-time control implementation — LabVIEW, embedded firmware, FPGA-based control, or low-latency computing architectures. 
• Familiarity with opto-mechanical practice: kinematic and flexure mounting, adhesive bonding, cleanroom assembly, and STOP (structural-thermal-optical performance) analysis.