Engineer/Physicist in Computational Electromagnetics, Meta-Material/Surface Design

Citizenship: Must be a US Citizen

Clearance Required: Eligible to obtain a security clearance

Job Summary

Develop and characterize material technologies capable of dynamic and fast optical response to mitigate the deleterious effects of adversarial and friendly directed energy or flash-blindness in future battlespace environments through application of Maxwell’s equations in a modeling and machine learning environment. Examine switchable, or tunable optical phenomena as well as active materials and composites to provide jamming, damage, structural, or flash-blindness protection across the electromagnetic spectrum as well as capability to Air Force systems relating to shape reconfiguration. Develop the understanding of structure-property-performance relationships of novel materials approaches and implementations. Results generated within the effort shall be published, when appropriate, in top journals in materials science, physics, chemistry, and related disciplines. Accordingly, personnel associated with this effort will also represent their work at national and international conferences and meetings. 

Provide support on-base research efforts in support of the Air Force Research Laboratory, Materials and Manufacturing Directorate. At the broadest level our research group plans, directs and conducts in‑house and extramural research and development of materials technologies with an emphasis of functional applications with sufficient maturity to transition to the warfighter.

This research opportunity involves the exploration of light-matter interactions with the aim of optimizing optical characteristics through the understanding of constituent material properties and design of nano-to-micro scale structures. In particular, create novel optical responses through the geometry, orientation, and/or arrangement of sub-wavelength features. For instance, the nanostructured surface morphology found in the moth eye has inspired structured antireflection coatings, and singly negative metamaterials have been utilized to demonstrate exceptional reflectance from a nanopillar array. The central focus of the research will be to exploit the light-matter interactions offered by these nano-to-micro scoped structures within a broad range of topical areas.

Ultimately, the success of targeted AFRL programs of interest will depend on our ability to develop high quality optical components.  Key to this effort will be enhancing system throughput, by reducing all sources of efficiency loss. The photonics branch of the materials and manufacturing directorate (RXAP) has in-house expertise for multi-layer modeling and simulation and maintains several deposition systems, such as magnetron sputtering chambers.

Roles and Responsibilities

• A core focal area is the development of advanced or fundamentally new material systems, structures, and devices built around optical physics. This includes the development of laser material components and system applications, as well as electro-optic and magneto-optic systems.
• Requires the study of optical (electro-optic, and/or magneto-optic) properties through application of knowledge in established guiding scientific principles (e.g. Maxwell’s equations, Lorentz force law, other PDE based calculation) as applied in high performance computer modeling, while contributing to HPC machine learning capabilities to generate and test an exponentially larger material data set.
• Will be tasked in aiding the theoretical development of metasurface optical coatings with material inhomogeneity to control the directional scattering, reflective, transmissive, and loss properties, of optical components within select DoD systems. Successful designs will be further explored experimentally with the in-house capabilities.
• Available resources for computation will include a high performance workstation, laptop, and direct access to a custom built Virtual Beowulf Cluster (the MANTIS CORE).
• Other duties as assigned.

Education, Experience, and Skills

• Degree in fields related to Physics (Optics), Electrical or Optical Engineering, or similar. Scientific Computing education is an added benefit.
• PhD is strongly preferred.

• Experienced with MS Office (Word, PowerPoint, Excel).
• Experienced with computer-aided material, magnetic, electronic, or optical device/system modeling.
• Ability to accurately and succinctly communicate (oral and written) detailed technical material to non-technical and/or non-specialized persons.
• Proficiency in scientifically poised programming languages such as Python, MATLAB, or C++.
• Familiarity in computational electromagnetics.
• Experience in university level research exemplified through peer reviewed publications.

Physical Requirements / Travel

• Normal office environment.
• Some travel will be required, primarily CONUS, 5-10% of the time but occasionally more frequently.

Azimuth Overview

Azimuth is an award-winning Service Disabled, Veteran Owned Business specializing in providing acquisition management, financial management, and program management support to the federal government. Azimuth's strong understanding of federal acquisition, contract, financial management and program management organization (PMO) lifecycles paves the way for mature organizational processes, experienced resources, responsive management and proven management methodologies to meet and exceed client goals. Excellence, Integrity, Accountability, Community and Humility are the core values of Azimuth as we continue to strive in becoming a recognized leader in the management consulting community that both federal agencies and industry partners value doing business with. We are an organization that offers both our employees and clients an exceptional experience; our culture will be contagious, while always maintaining a genuine reputation.

Disclaimer

The above information on this description has been designed to indicate the general nature and level of work performed by employees within this classification. It is not designed to contain or be interpreted as a comprehensive inventory of all duties, responsibilities, and qualifications required of employees assigned to this job.

Azimuth Corporation does not discriminate in employment on the basis of race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy and gender identity), national origin, political affiliation, sexual orientation, marital status, disability, genetic information, age, membership in an employee organization, retaliation, parental status, military service, or other non-merit factor.