NASA Postdoctoral Program - Photonic devices for quantum sensors

The NASA Postdoctoral Program (NPP) offers unique research opportunities to highly-talented scientists to engage in ongoing NASA research projects at a NASA Center, NASA Headquarters, or at a NASA-affiliated research institute. These one- to three-year fellowships are competitive and are designed to advance NASA's missions in space science, Earth science, aeronautics, space operations, exploration systems, and astrobiology. This specific opportunity focuses on designing, fabricating, and characterizing advanced semiconductor lasers and semiconductor optical amplifiers for quantum sensing applications. The position is within the Photonics and Quantum Sensors Group at the Microdevices Laboratory of JPL, working on emerging quantum instruments that use laser-cooled atoms as precision sensors. The research aims to adapt cold-atom systems from laboratory-scale experiments to compact, low-power field deployable probes. The quantum sensors under development require stable narrow linewidth single mode lasers and low current drive high saturation power optical amplifiers in the 600-850 nm wavelength range, with applications including atom interferometer gravimeters and Rydberg-atom RF-electric probes.