Principal Electro-Optical/Adaptive Optics Engineer, Fusion Systems

Xcimer Energy leverages decades of research on Inertial Fusion Energy (IFE) combined with groundbreaking new laser architecture. Our mission is to deploy fusion power plants to meet global decarbonization goals as fast as possible. Xcimer has assembled a team of leaders in tough tech, fusion science, and manufacturing with a track record of rapid execution. Supported by leading investors, Xcimer is uniquely positioned to deliver limitless, clean, fusion power to combat climate change. Join us in powering a better world with inertial fusion!

This is a full-time, onsite role based at our headquarters in Denver, CO.

Xcimer is seeking a Principal Electro-Optical/Adaptive Optics Engineer to serve as the technical authority for adaptive optics within the organization, leading the design, specification, procurement, and integration of a high-speed custom adaptive optics system for our fusion beamlines. You will own the architecture: system-level requirements, performance budgets, and the bandwidth, stroke, and latency trades that determine whether closed-loop correction is good enough to put energy on target. You will also own the vendor relationships that supply the system and the commissioning that proves it works.

The physics of what reaches the target decides what the adaptive optics system has to do, so this role is built around the performance model as much as the hardware. You will predict far-field irradiance and focal-spot quality through the beamline, decompose the error budget into fitting, temporal, measurement, calibration, and non-common-path terms, and use that to set the requirements on deformable mirrors, wavefront sensors, and the real-time loop. You do not need to be at the bench yourself. You do need to be able to define the proof-of-concept and de-risking experiments and direct optical engineers, laser scientists, and technicians to execute them.

This is also a group-building role. Xcimer’s adaptive optics capability is small and growing, and you will help shape what it becomes: the technical standards and development practices it works to, the hiring bar, the engineers you mentor, and technology development that outlives any single program. We move on real hardware quickly. We want the governing equations and a first-order layout before money is committed, and we want a cheap experiment that could break the concept shortly after.

We are looking for our scientists and engineers to apply their technical expertise, problem solving skills, and dedication to quality to positively impact the future of energy!

Responsibilities:

Requirements and Performance Modeling

• Serve as technical lead for the adaptive optics system, from requirements definition through integration and commissioning.
• Own adaptive optics and wavefront control requirements for the fusion beamlines, from top-level beam quality and energy-on-target objectives down to component and interface specifications.
• Build and maintain the end-to-end performance model: wave-optics propagation through the beamline, prediction of far-field irradiance and focal-spot quality at target, and a wavefront error budget resolved into fitting, temporal, measurement, calibration, and non-common-path terms.
• Own the disturbance model that drives it: beam path turbulence and gas density fluctuations, thermally induced aberration in amplifiers and transport optics, static figure error, opto-mechanical jitter, and pulse-to-pulse repeatability at operational repetition rate.
• Set the resulting requirements on deformable mirrors, wavefront sensors, reconstructors, and the real-time control loop, including actuator count and stroke, bandwidth, latency, and disturbance rejection budgets, and review vendor designs against them.
• Lead trade studies and architecture decisions: correction topology, sensing approach and wavelength, sampling and control rates, and where the system is limited by physics rather than by hardware.
• Ensure designs meet performance, reliability, and operability requirements, and identify technical risks with mitigation plans in coordination with program management.

Vendor Engagement and Procurement

• Lead technical engagement with commercial and research vendors delivering adaptive optics components and subsystems.
• Own the technical side of adaptive optics procurements and development subcontracts: statements of work, specification negotiation, vendor technical reviews, and acceptance criteria and testing, including deep-UV coating and damage-threshold requirements.
• Plan and defend the resources the adaptive optics scope needs: scope, schedule, staffing, and build-versus-buy calls, including where a commercial system suffices and where development is unavoidable.
• Oversee vendor design reviews, factory acceptance tests, and delivery milestones.
• Act as the primary technical interface for resolving performance, schedule, and integration issues with suppliers.

Integration, Test, and Commissioning

• Define the proof-of-concept and risk-reduction experiments that settle open questions, then direct optical engineers, laser scientists, and technicians to run them and interpret the results.
• Define and review laboratory and in-situ test plans that validate performance and closed-loop operation, and approve the resulting test reports.
• Provide guidance and best practices to other engineers in the assembly, integration, and test of the adaptive optics system within the beamline environment, including contamination-control discipline appropriate to deep-UV, high-fluence optics.
• Work closely with beamline, controls, and laser system teams to ensure clean system integration and well-defined interfaces.
• Work with control system engineers to integrate adaptive optics within the larger laser control system, helping define required controls, interlocks, and operator feedback.
• Support commissioning activities and the transition to reliable, repeatable operations.

Technical Stewardship and Group Growth

• Author and defend artifacts in Xcimer’s gated design review process, and serve as a reviewer on others’ packages.
• Establish technical standards, documentation practices, and development workflows for the adaptive optics group.
• Mentor and guide engineers and scientists working on adaptive optics and wavefront control.
• Participate in hiring and onboarding as the group expands.
• Take on technology development that outlives any single program.

Requirements:

• Education: Advanced degree in optics, physics, electrical engineering, or a closely related field.
• Experience: 8+ years of optical science/engineering experience, including 5+ years in adaptive optics, wavefront sensing and control, or closely related high-speed optical control systems.
• A track record of delivering adaptive optics or beam control systems in industry, national labs, or observatories.
• Demonstrated ownership of adaptive optics requirements and performance budgets on a real program, including the wavefront error budget and its allocation across subsystems.
• Demonstrated use of a wave-optics propagation code for system performance prediction, including codes you wrote yourself, and the ability to state and defend what the model does and does not capture.
• Hands-on working knowledge of deformable mirrors, wavefront sensors, and high-bandwidth feedback control, sufficient to specify them, review a vendor’s implementation, and judge whether a delivered system meets its requirements.
• Ability to set and audit closed-loop control requirements: bandwidth, latency, sampling, reconstructor approach, and disturbance rejection.
• Experience working directly with external vendors on custom optical and electro-optical systems, including specification negotiation and design reviews.
• Experience directing the technical work of other engineers, scientists, or technicians through a substantial task.
• Familiarity with high-energy or high-intensity laser systems and the constraints they place on optics, including damage threshold and thermal management.
• Advanced verbal and written communication skills, including technical documentation, requirements definition, and presentation to internal and external audiences.
• Willingness to travel to vendor facilities.
• 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:

• Highly preferred: experience with directed energy or other high-power/high-intensity laser platforms.
• Experience delivering a custom adaptive optics system from concept through commissioning.
• Experience with high-energy optics in the deep UV, including laser-induced damage, coating specification, and contamination control.
• Experience with adaptive optics or wavefront correction on large-aperture, high-energy pulsed beamlines.
• Experience with pulsed laser systems and the diagnostics used to characterize them.
• Experience with wavefront diagnostics beyond Shack-Hartmann sensing (interferometry, phase retrieval, curvature or pyramid sensing).
• Experience with predictive or optimal control, system identification, or reconstructor optimization applied to a real loop.
• Familiarity with real-time software, FPGA-based control, or low-latency computing architectures.
• Experience with beam pointing and jitter control, including opto-mechanical jitter analysis and vibration isolation.
• Familiarity with STOP (structural-thermal-optical performance) analysis and its use in setting opto-mechanical requirements.
• Experience with turbulence characterization in enclosed beam paths.
• Experience mentoring engineers or leading technical teams, and building out a technical discipline within an organization.
• Experience in multidisciplinary research laser facilities, such as national laboratories.
• Experience in laboratory and operational environments that demand high reliability and uptime.
• Experience writing scientific papers or program technical reports.