Professional Development for Members

Welcome to Optica's Professional Development Webinar Library, your gateway to a wide range of recorded webinars designed to enhance your career and skillset. Whether you're an Optica member or part of the broader optics and photonics community, you'll find valuable insights from industry leaders, technical experts, and seasoned professionals.

Our collection covers a variety of topics, including career advancement, leadership, technical skills, and emerging trends in optics and photonics. These webinars are perfect for professionals at any stage of their career, from early-career scientists to experienced industry veterans.

Explore our on-demand webinars at your own pace, and take advantage of the knowledge and expertise shared by top minds in the field. Stay ahead of the curve, learn from the best, and continue your professional growth with Optica's comprehensive webinar library. 

Upcoming Professional Development Opportunities: 

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Developing Requirements for Scientific Instrumentation

The benefits of systems engineering are widely promoted with varying degrees of understanding. This webinar is based on many years of experience designing and building complex systems incorporating all of the engineering disciplines (optics, mechanics, electronics, and software). For me, understanding and using systems engineering has been a natural approach driven by my instincts (even before it was a newfound contemporary “thing”). Systems engineering is about balance and perspective. The word “system” conveys the inherently multidisciplinary nature of the work. The engineering work is fundamentally to hold a perspective that makes sure nothing is overlooked that could affect the outcome and to make sure that the best balance is achieved between all of the competing needs and wants that drive the creation of the system in the first place. Systems engineering starts with requirements, and then systems engineering follows on to serve and protect the requirements by constantly evaluating error budgets and the compliance of the system with the requirements as the system is designed and built. In this webinar you will learn by example: - How to approach the development of requirements that satisfies your stakeholders - How to use one sentence definitions to clarify ideas and gain consensus - How to define and manage expectations - How to gain and confirm requirements “completeness”.

Introduction to Mid-Spatial Frequency (MSF) Errors for Optical Surfaces

Mid-spatial frequency (MSF) errors can be a source of small angle scatter or blur in an optical system. This webinar will provide an introduction to MSF errors. It will cover many questions optical designers often ask of optical fabricators, for example: What causes MSF errors on the surface of optics? How can I specify MSF errors so that my surfaces are smooth? How are you going to measure MSF errors?

Laser Systems Engineering

While there are a number of courses on laser design, this course emphasizes a systems‐level overview of the design and engineering of optical systems which incorporate these unique sources of light. Starting with a review of Gaussian beam characteristics and propagation, we then look at laser system optics, beam control and scanning, detectors specific to laser systems, and the integration of these topics for developing a complete laser-based optical system. The emphasis is on real‐world design problems, as well as the commercial off-the‐shelf (COTS) components used to solve them.