Optical Coating Engineer

Scope of Position

As a member of the Advanced Optics Division Engineering Optical Thin Film Coating group, you will define and develop optical thin film coatings and manufacturing processes that build on Corning’s existing knowledge base to move products into coating production.  This is a hands-on engineering / manufacturing role working in collaboration with the Division Engineering Optical Design and System Engineering, Plant Engineering, and Program Management teams.

Key Responsibilities

• Design robust, cost-effective coating production processes using existing methods that meet customer specifications.  Specify cleaning, material handling, storage procedures, and metrology methods to characterize coating performance within the coating process flow.  Manage coating designs and process recipe portfolio.
• Transfer knowledge of new coating designs, processes, and product characteristics into manufacturing.  Provide training as needed, create coating recipes, work instructions, process sheets, and define measurement requirements for new products.
• Interface with Optical Design and System Engineering teams to understand new coating fundamentals and processing requirements.  Comprehension of coating properties impact to system-level performance specifications; analyze technical trade-offs and risks.
• Engage with the Plant coating Engineering team to design and fabricate prototype and production optical element tooling, customized coating chamber hardware, and metrology tools.
• Provide engineering support to Division Engineering Technicians; define test activities, process set-up, hardware evaluation, measurements, and analysis of results.
• Assist Program Management to estimate costs, labor hours, and manage overall coating aspects of projects.  Provide input for process and product transfer tollgates.  Participate in weekly project meetings; customer and design review meetings; experienced working directly with customers.
• Utilize Design for Manufacturing principles to determine optimal manufacturing strategies and Manufacturing Engineering Excellence (MEE) practices to solve technical problems and formulate mechanistic understanding of coating processes.
• Lead projects and activities furthering coating technology and metrology capabilities, and document intellectual property via internal reports, invention disclosures, and patent applications.

Required Education and Experience

• B.S. degree (M.S. preferred) in Optical Science / Engineering, Physics, Materials Science, Chemical Engineering, or equivalent degree
• 10+ years of optical coating design and manufacturing, ideally visible to LWIR wavelength range.
   

Desired Skills and Experience

• Coating and optical design / modeling software experience - OptiLayer, Essential McLeod, TFCalc, WVASE or similar SW.
• Thin film characterization - spectrophotometer, ellipsometer, SEM, TEM, FTIR, SIMS, MIL spec testing.
• Electron beam, thermal evaporation, sputtering and ion-assisted deposition.  High-vacuum practice; vacuum chamber operation, system control, and support equipment.
• Experience with optical substrate materials; optics handling, cleaning, and inspecting.
• Contamination control and cleanroom operations.
• Experienced specifying capital equipment configuration and acceptance testing.
• Strong written and oral communication skills.
• Critical thinking to solve problems quickly and efficiently
• Ability to interact within a team of multi-disciplinary engineers and at all levels of the organization (Production Technicians to Senior Leadership).