Laser Development Specialist

Design and build lasers you won't find anywhere else! Want to build lasers rather than just operate them? At the HiLASE Centre we develop high-average-power diode-pumped solid-state lasers - from the PERLA family of picosecond thin-disk systems to Bivoj, the world's first nanosecond laser to reach kilowatt average power with 100 J pulses. We are looking for a colleague who will take a new system all the way from resonator calculations through laboratory assembly to the moment it first reaches its target performance.
Our lasers don't end up on a shelf. They are used by industrial partners and research teams from across Europe for micromachining, laser shock peening, optics damage testing and materials research. HiLASE is part of the Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences, located on a modern campus in Dolní Břežany, on the southern edge of Prague. What you will do
Design laser resonators, regenerative and multipass amplifiers and optical systems - including deciding which components to use.
Build, align and fine-tune laser systems in the laboratory until they meet their target parameters.
Measure power, pulse energy and duration, spectrum, beam quality and stability - and understand what the numbers are telling you.
Find out what limits a laser (thermal effects, nonlinearities, instabilities) and work out how to overcome it.
Work with colleagues in optomechanics, electronics and control on system design and diagnostics.
Publish your results, present them at international conferences and contribute to technical reports. What you will bring
A PhD in optics, laser physics, photonics or a related field - or a master's degree plus several years of experience in which you independently designed and built a laser or laser amplifier.
A solid grounding in optics and laser physics: resonators, amplifiers and beam propagation.
Hands-on experience building a laser or amplifier, with good skills in aligning optics and measuring laser parameters.
Independence: you can plan an experiment, evaluate it and decide what comes next.
English for everyday technical communication and writing - plus care in the lab and a willingness to share knowledge with the team. Don't tick every box?
If the role excites you, get in touch anyway - we'd be glad to talk. Nice to have
Experience with thin-disk lasers, regenerative or multipass amplifiers.
Ultrashort pulses: chirped pulse amplification (CPA), compression, nonlinear frequency conversion.
Modelling of lasers and optical systems.
Programming (Python, MATLAB, LabVIEW) for data analysis, measurement automation or experiment control. What we offer
Work on unique laser systems with real ownership of your part of the development - your designs actually get built.
Research with visible impact: projects with industrial partners and European research teams.
An international team of more than 30 people from several countries, with English as an everyday working language.
Room to publish, attend conferences and keep growing professionally, including technical and language training.
Five weeks of annual leave plus six days of personal leave, flexible working hours / home office.
Meal allowance, MultiSport card and on-site parking.
Support for international colleagues with visas, relocation and paperwork. Need to know more?
Location: HiLASE Centre, Dolní Břežany, near Prague, Czechia Employment: full-time (part-time negotiable) Start date: as soon as possible or by agreement Contract conditions: As training and adaptation take approximately one year, we welcome candidates who plan to stay with us for at least 2+ years. Full-time employment is preferred.
More about HiLASE: [protected info] If you think we could work well together, send me your CV and a few words about yourself and why you would like to be our new powerhouse. I look forward to hearing from you! Please always include the following text together with your email so that we can work with the data you send: I agree that my personal data sent to the FZÚ AV ČR, v.v.i.
Na Slovance 2, 182 21 Praha 8, Czech Republic, will be used exclusively for the purposes of job placement and maintaining a database of job applicants in accordance with Act No. 110/2019 Coll. The consent is given for a period of one year and can be revoked in writing at any time.
Contact: Bc. Olga Lakomá Head of People & Culture Strategy Tel: +420 702 086 170 E-mail: [protected info]
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