| 1998–Present |
Vice President of Optical Engineering Services, Optical Research Associates |
| 1996–1998 |
Director of Optical Engineering Services, Optical Research Associates |
| 1994–1996 |
Acting Director of Optical Engineering Services, Optical Research Associates |
| 1989–1994 |
Assistant Director of Optical Engineering Services, Optical Research Associates |
| 1986–1989 |
Senior Staff Engineer/Optical Design, Optical Research Associates |
| 1985–1986 |
Senior Optical Designer, Perkin-Elmer |
| 1980–1985 |
Optical Designer, Perkin-Elmer |
| 1978–1980 |
Optical Engineer, Talandic Research (part-time) |
| 1978 (Summer) |
Optical Analyst, Perkin-Elmer |
| 1976–1980 |
Research Associate, University of Arizona, Optical Sciences Center |
Dr. Thompson's experience has been concentrated in three areas. Most recently he has been leading a team of optical designers and optical engineers in both imaging and illumination optics providing state-of-the-art optical system development services throughout the world. He has full responsibility for all aspects of the optical engineering activities at ORA including strategic direction marketing, sales, and customer development, and technical oversight. In this role he typically works with over 100 companies a year across the spectrum of optics. In addition, he initiated and continues to participate in securing government funding for advancing the state of the art in optical design software where he has led proposals for over $4M in government funding from DARPA, SBIR, and ATP in conformal optics, illumination optics for EUV lithography, advanced software for modeling photonic devices, and the incorporation of LEDs into Runway Lighting. |
| Prior to entering management, he performed as an integral member of small working teams formed to provide state-of-the-art optical hardware functioning in complex, demanding, customer-defined scenarios. In this role, responsibilities have included: system engineering, i.e., transforming the scenario into an appropriate set of optical system specifications, conceptual and detailed optical design, in-depth computer modeling of the optical system to support performance prediction, error budget derivation, flowdown and piece part tolerance allocation, mount design for dynamic and environmental stability, assembly/test procedure development and implementation, vendor selection and monitoring for piece part manufacture, acceptance test plan development, acting as interface between design engineers and assembly technicians, and development and presentation of all optical information to the customer from proposal through final design review. |
| His third area of concentration is in development of new applications for optical design software. Areas of expertise include: nonsymmetric design techniques, sensitivity analysis methods for one-of-a-kind optical systems, holographic optical design tools, and enhanced user environments for improving flexibility for state-of-the-art design problems. |
| Optical systems for which he has been the principal optical designer include: null lens designs for the highly successful Hubble 1st Servicing Mission, optical modeling and analysis for the first generation EUV illuminator for lithography (for the VNL alpha optics), Gen III night vision systems; hybrid prototypes with binary optics; all reflective systems for normal incidence soft X-ray (e.g., EUV)
lithography; machine vision systems for production quality control; null lenses for nonsymmetric mirrors; high frame rate acousto-optic IR scene generators; a thermally compensated high performance dual mode FLIR; two
multiband active tracking radiometric imaging systems; a 3-bin real-time UV shearing interferometer; projection optics for dome simulators; far-field Gaussian beam shapers; multiband spectrometers; an ultra-wideband refractive imager; missile seeker heads; f-theta laser scan lenses; an acousto-optic laser projector for large format color displays; anamorphic beam expanders and projectors; and a proof of concept broad-band holographic imaging system. These projects have often led to field deployed hardware systems. He has also provided support to programs for a variety of systems (ALPHA, BSTS, SBL), the Advanced X-ray Astrophysical Facility (AXAF, now in-orbit as Chandra), the Solar Optical Telescope (SOT), the Space Telescope Fine Guidance System (ST-FGS), and the second generation Wide Field and Planetary Cameras (WFPC II), and COSTAR. |
| Co-editor (with Leo Gardner), "1998 International Optics Design Conference Proceedings," SPIE, Vol. 3482, Summer 1998. |
| "Optical Design Techniques for Optical Systems Containing Conformal Surfaces," OSA Short Course Notes, OSA Annual Meeting, Long Beach, CA, 1997. |
| "Incorporating Aspherics into your Technology," (with D. Bajuk) Presented at the OSA Annual Meeting, Rochester, NY, 1996. |
| "Practical Methods for the Optical Design of Systems Without Symmetry," SPIE, Vol. 2774, p. 2, 1996. |
| "Optical Design, Information and Insights," Presented to the Committee on Optical Science and Engineering, National Academy of Sciences, March 1996. |
| "A Key To Cost Effective Optical Systems Maximize the Number of Qualified Fabricators," (with L Hoyle), OSA IODC, Vol. 22, p. 208, 1994. |
| "Null Lens Designs and Testing of the Spherical Aberration Compensating Wide Field and Planetary Camera (WF/PC II) Secondaries for the Hubble Space Telescope (HST)," (with J. Meckel), OSA IODC, Vol. 22, p. 280, 1994. |
| "Compensating Lens Designs and Testing of the COSTAR Optics," (with J. Rodgers, and B. Kestner), OSA IODC, Vol. 22, p. 284, 1994. |
| "Design of a Multiwavelength Scophony Infrared Scene Projector," (with J. Kircher, R. Korniski, S. Marlow, and R. Richwine), SPIE, Vol.2000, p. 76, 1993. |
| "Reflective Optical Designs for Soft X-ray Projection Lithography," (with T. Jewell and J. Rodgers), SPIE, Vol. 1527, p. 163, 1991. |
| "The Importance of Dispersion Tolerances in Infrared Lens Design," (with R. Korniski), SPIE, Vol. 1354, p. 402, 1990. |
| "Reflective Systems Design Study for Soft X-ray Projection Lithography," (with T. Jewell and J. Rodgers), J. Vac. Sci. Technology B, Vol. 8 (6), p. 1519, Nov/Dec 1990. |
| "Beyond Optical Design: Interaction between the Lens Designer and the Real World," SPIE, Vol 554, p. 426, 1985. |
| "Techniques for Characterizing Optical System Assembly," Presented at the OSA Annual Meeting, October (1984). Abstract in JOSA A, Vol. 1 No. 12, 1227, 1984. |
| "Techniques for Characterizing Optical System Fabrication," SPIE, Vol. 483, p. 16, 1984. |
| "A Graphic Approach to the Analysis of Perturbed Optical Systems," SPIE, Vol. 237, 1980, p. 127. |
| "Aberration Fields in Tilted and Decentered Optical System," Ph.D. dissertation, University of Arizona, Tucson, Ariz., 1980. |
| "Aberration Fields in Unobscured Mirror Systems," Presented at the OSA Annual Meeting, October (1980). Abstract in JOSA, Vol. 70, No. 12, p. 1603, 1980. |
| "Image Degradation in Misaligned Optical Systems," Presented at the OSA Annual Meeting, October (1979). Abstract in JOSA, Vol. 69, p. 1428, 1979. |
