Research associate

About the Company

Trine Energy is a UK based early stage startup developing products for transmission of electrical power (1MW+) using power of fiber (PoF) as the core technology. PoF is already in use in many industries. However the power used in those applications are in milliwatts. Our power transmission target is orders of magnitude higher. It is a challenging yet exciting problem to solve.

We are working on the hypothesis that the production of power is a solved problem. Solar and wind based energy production has been rapidly scaling since the start of the century. In fact there is too much generation of solar and wind power in many European countries leading to curtailment and negative spot price of electricity. Renaissance of fission nuclear reactors and the advancements in fusion means there will be no shortage of electrical power. The challenge will be to distribute that power at a national and global scale. Today, the only option of distributing electrical power over distance is the power grid. It works, but just. It is a super old technology. It takes immense effort to build or expand, and is costly to maintain. According to various studies, ~$1 Trillion of annual investment is needed globally to upgrade and expand the grid networks to reach net zero target by 2050. Governments don’t have fiscal capacity to make such investments. It has not seen any real innovation for a very long time and there is none on the horizon to significantly reduce the cost. It gets unstable when there is too much intermittent power in the mix, which goes against the global drive for energy transition. It is fragmented, and has no global scale.

Laser and fiber optic, in comparison, are modern technologies, enjoying rapid innovation. Both are highly flexible products. They have many interesting properties that electricity and power cables don’t have. They can be produced in significantly higher volumes and are easy to deploy. Their cost and performance are improving at Moore’s law scale. This opens the opportunity for us to build products and become an alternative to specific use cases that are easier to develop and implement in the near term, such as providing power redundancy using short distance transmission (<5km) to critical infrastructure such as defense systems and data centers. It is also possible to deliver electrical power as thermal energy for commercial and industrial heating. The long term goal is to create a global network of power, much like the internet, where producers and end users can connect instantly and seamlessly using our technology. The products that solve the energy distribution problem at a global scale have the potential to define a new industry.

Our plan is to combine technologies from different fields of science and engineering such as high power diode and fiber lasers, specialised fiber optic, power over fiber, and thermal photovoltaic cells to achieve the goal. By using technologies that are already invented and commercialised, and pushing the boundaries of engineering and finance to create a product that solves one of the biggest energy transition bottlenecks, is a mission worth pursuing.

About the Role

The role offers excellent exposure to the process of first-of-kind product development and commercialization. Besides the scientific work, you will get a chance to work with the top tier manufacturers of laser, fiber optics, and semiconductor products, top ranking university labs and fast growing industries such as AI datacenter and renewable power producers.

On a day-to-day basis, you will work under the lead Research Scientist and shadow across all workflows. You will be part of the scientific research team developing highly detailed and multi-level simulation starting with the fiber level physics and then adding multi-physics models on top to develop a digital twin of the system. It is a polymathic process where knowledge from several domains of physics is drawn and models are developed and tested using first principles, and common sense engineering thought process. Following is a list of tasks that can be expected to lead or participate in this role:

• Learning about core physics used in product development through own research and reading academic and research papers

- laser propagation in optical fiber, modes, linear and non linear optical effects

- types of fibers, effects of doping, optical properties

- laser generation in semi-conductor diode laser and fiber laser, properties of laser

- manipulation of laser using optical components such as collimator, lens, mirror, expander

- building optical systems using splicing, combiner, splitter, free space beaming etc

- conversion of laser to electrical power using semi-conductor laser power converter

• Use equations (linear/ODE/PDE) and tools (Python, 3rd party tools) to model linear, spatial and temporal behavior of the end to end system
• Develop hypothesis and assumptions, run simulations, prepare and use test cases
• Incorporate vendor specifications, lab measurements, and synthetic data into modelling frameworks, and rigorously sanity‑check outputs against analytical estimates and literature.
• Build code base, GUIs and documentation and maintain version control
• Use AI and ML techniques to to improve workflows and speed up simulation work
• Own the documentation of models: governing equations, assumptions, numerical schemes, validation, and key results, making them understandable and reusable across the company and with partners.

What we are looking for in the candidate

• Masters in Physics/Computational Physics with coursework covering these physics subjects- thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, optics, optoelectronics, laser, semi-conductor
• Excellent command over the underlying physics and governing equations
• Understanding of coupling of physical phenomena and constructing coupled equations from the underlying governing equations
• Nice to have knowledge: laser properties, principles of laser propagation in fiber and free space, modes and mode solving, the science of semi-conductors for laser generation and conversion of light to electricity
• Hands on experience in building models, simulation, post processing and validation
• Python programming language, AI aided coding (Cursor, Codex, Claude Code etc.), and use of Github
• Knowledge of HPC on cloud (e.g., AWS, Azure, GCP, GPU clusters).
• Experience in applying AI/ML techniques- surrogate, ROM, PINN etc.
• Familiarity with any multi-physics tool- COMSOL, Ansys, MATLAB or open source tools.
• Ability and willingness to perform tasks independently with minimal supervision
• Ability to search scientific literature relevant to work, develop and test hypotheses, articulate problem statement and offer potential solutions and provide comments and ideas
• Excellent documentation skills
• Excellent communication skills

What we offer

• High performance team
• Great culture
• Fast moving start-up environment
• Wide canvas to think deep and experiment
• Exposure to product development and commercialization
• Remote work (will convert to hybrid end of the year)