Senior/Staff Nanofabrication and Characterization Engineer

Originally posted 4 November 2026 by the employer.

About the role

As a Senior/Staff Nanofabrication and Characterization Engineer at Neurophos, you will build and characterize prototype metasurface chips for an optical vector-matrix multiplication (OVMM) engine. You will turn electromagnetic designs into masks and process flows, fabricate multilevel metal–dielectric nanostructures, integrate active tunable layers, and execute both physical metrology and electro-optic characterization.

What you'll do

• Turn metasurface designs into multi-step process flows, travelers, and mask layouts using tools such as KLayout or L-Edit.
• Pattern sub-200 nm features and execute multilayer alignment using electron-beam lithography, deep-UV steppers, and optical lithography.
• Deposit and dry-etch metals, dielectrics, and thin conformal liners using sputtering, evaporation, PECVD, ALD, and RIE/ICP while controlling profiles to nanometer tolerances.
• Build stacked metal–dielectric structures with vias and planarization (CMP, damascene, or lift-off), addressing misalignment, dishing, voids, and adhesion.
• Integrate electro-optically tunable layers, complete device assembly (dicing, mounting, and wire-bonding), and maintain university cleanroom access and run cadence.
• Perform process metrology (SEM, FIB cross-sections, AFM, profilometry, ellipsometry) and characterize optical response (reflectance, spectra, polarization, voltage tuning).

What you'll need

• MS or PhD in Electrical Engineering, Materials Science, Applied Physics, Optics, or a closely related field centered on nanofabrication.
• 3+ years of hands-on cleanroom experience fabricating nanophotonic, metasurface, plasmonic, MEMS, or semiconductor devices, with ownership of multi-step process flows.
• Direct experience with electron-beam lithography and multilayer alignment at sub-200 nm feature sizes, including resist processing, dose, and proximity correction.
• Hands-on expertise in metal and dielectric deposition and dry etch, including recipe development for profile, selectivity, and uniformity.
• Proficiency with physical metrology tools including SEM, AFM, ellipsometry, and profilometry, as well as microscope-based optical characterization setups.
• Scripting proficiency in Python or MATLAB for process data analysis and automated measurement, alongside layout tools such as KLayout or L-Edit.

Nice to have

• Experience in university or shared-user nanofabrication facilities, including tool qualification and schedule management.
• Background in damascene metallization, CMP, or other planarization processes for multilevel interconnect-like stacks.
• Experience with atomic layer deposition (ALD) of conformal liners, post-CMOS processing, or heterogeneous integration on foundry wafers.
• Experience working with tunable optical materials (liquid crystals, electro-optic polymers, phase-change materials) and cell assembly.
• Hands-on packaging experience including dicing, die attach, wire bonding, and electrical probing.
• Metasurface or nanophotonic design experience using full-wave electromagnetic simulation (FDTD, FEM, RCWA).

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