Adaptive Optics Engineer for High-Energy Lasers

Lever, Inc.; Denver (CO); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

401(k) with company match up to 6%

Medical, dental, and vision coverage

Paid parental leave

Job summary

Xcimer Energy in Denver, CO, seeks an Electro-Optical / Adaptive Optics Engineer to advance beam control for inertial fusion energy. You will develop AO algorithms, align and operate high-energy AO hardware, and collaborate with vendors on next-gen platforms.

You will model beam propagation, contribute to wavefront budgets, and work with multidisciplinary engineers to deliver reliable, high-performance optics in a challenging environment.

Qualifications

• B.S. in optical science/engineering, physics, or a related field.
• 5+ years of optical science/engineering experience, including 3+ years in adaptive optics.
• 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 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.

Responsibilities

• Develop 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

Skills

adaptive optics

wavefront sensors

deformable mirrors

MATLAB

Python

C/C++/C#

control systems

beam alignment

Education

B.S. in optical science/engineering, physics, or a related field

M.S. or Ph.D. in optical engineering/science, physics, or a related field

Tools

LabVIEW

FPGA-based control

Deformable mirrors

Wavefront sensors

Job description

Xcimer Energy in Denver, CO, seeks an Electro-Optical / Adaptive Optics Engineer to advance beam control for inertial fusion energy. You will develop AO algorithms, align and operate high-energy AO hardware, and collaborate with vendors on next-gen platforms.

You will model beam propagation, contribute to wavefront budgets, and work with multidisciplinary engineers to deliver reliable, high-performance optics in a challenging environment.