Photonics Research Scientist

The MITRE Corporation • New Bedford, MA

25d • Onsite

About The Position

Why choose between doing meaningful work and having a fulfilling life? At MITRE, you can have both. That's because MITRE people are committed to tackling our nation's toughest challenges—and we're committed to the long-term well-being of our employees. MITRE is different from most technology companies. We are a not-for-profit corporation chartered to work for the public interest, with no commercial conflicts to influence what we do. The R&D centers we operate for the government create lasting impact in fields as diverse as cybersecurity, healthcare, aviation, defense, and enterprise transformation. We're making a difference every day—working for a safer, healthier, and more secure nation and world. Our workplace reflects our values. We offer competitive benefits, exceptional professional development opportunities for career growth, and a culture of innovation that embraces adaptability, collaboration, technical excellence, and people in partnership. If this sounds like the choice you want to make, then choose MITRE - and make a difference with us.
Department Summary:
MITRE Lab’s Quantum Information Sciences, Optics, and Imaging Department serves as a vanguard for MITRE to meet the future needs of our customers, requiring technical excellence while encouraging creativity and fostering interests in current and emerging technologies across its diverse employees. Your future colleagues are a collegial team from diverse technical backgrounds who work across MITRE’s sponsors and partners.
The MITRE Corporation is seeking a highly motivated research scientist with experience and interest in the field of photonic integrated circuits (PICs). Research projects focus on developing photonics hardware for applications including light-based sensing, artificial intelligence hardware, and quantum information processing. Other applications such as directed energy and optical communications may also emerge in MITRE’s dynamic work environment, which encourages creativity and requires keeping pace with state-of-the-art technologies and practices. The work will involve optical simulations, PIC hardware design, testing and evaluation of bare die, and full photonic systems integration.
The candidate will work in the public interest to provide technical expertise in solving our sponsors’ critical missions involving optics and photonics.

Requirements

• Typically requires a minimum of 5 years of related experience with a Bachelor’s degree; or 3 years and a Master’s degree; or a PhD with relevant experience who can immediately contribute at this job step; or equivalent combination of related education and work experience.
• Training and understanding of optical physics, semiconductor physics, quantum physics, cleanroom fabrication processes, and/or laser systems & metrology.
• Familiarity with laboratory work on optical and/or chip-scale systems, such as research, development, and testing.
• Strong technical writing and oral presentation skills.
• The ability to conduct research and analysis in a collaborative environment.
• The ability to think critically and be proactive in pursuing research and problem-solving with minimal supervision.
• Must be U.S. citizen in order to obtain and maintain a Secret security clearance with additional accesses.
• This position requires a minimum of 4 days a week on-site

Nice To Haves

• Experience with PIC design software such as GDS Factory.
• Experience with 3D optical simulation software such as ANSYS Lumerical, COMSOL, Meep etc.
• Experience with experimental techniques involved in testing bare-die silicon photonics, including: Electronic probing Optical fiber array I/O and fiber components Wafer cleaving and handling Wire bonding Use of profilometry and metrology tools
• Experience with free-space quantum sensing systems such as nitrogen vacancies, Rydbergs, squeezed light etc.
• Experience with artificial neural network algorithms and neuromorphic architectures.
• Secret or Top Secret security clearance.
• Operational experience (DoD, DHS, IC, etc.) applying advanced technology, including fielded systems, C2/ISR, cyber/EW, autonomy/AI/ML, sensor fusion, or rapid prototyping-to-deployment.

Responsibilities

• The candidate will design integrated photonics components and work with foundries to fabricate PIC hardware for specific applications.
• The candidate will develop physics models for simulation of photonics devices and systems.
• The candidate will perform hardware testing in MITRE’s photonics and quantum labs, evaluating novel device performance under various conditions.
• The candidate will contribute to peer-reviewed journal publications.
• The candidate will contribute to analysis of various photonics systems, evaluating bottlenecks, opportunities, and risks to adopting PICs for relevant missions and provide recommendations to our sponsors.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Education Level: Ph.D. or professional degree
• Number of Employees: 1,001-5,000 employees