// Portfolio data — sourced from resume + project documentation. const PROFILE = { name: 'Xander Linzel', shortName: 'XL', role: 'Nanotechnology Engineering', school: 'University of Waterloo', location: 'Waterloo, ON → Boston, MA', status: 'Upcoming work term · Jan 2027 — Aug 2027', blurb: 'Nanotechnology Engineering undergraduate at the University of Waterloo (94.2 average). Photonics, ultrafast-laser systems, and nanofabrication research, with hands-on experience across femtosecond lithography, photonic crystal fibers, and quantum optics.', links: [ { label: 'Email', value: 'xlinzel@uwaterloo.ca', href: 'mailto:xlinzel@uwaterloo.ca' }, { label: 'Phone', value: '+1 613-717-2366', href: 'tel:+16137172366' }, { label: 'LinkedIn', value: 'linkedin.com/in/xander-linzel', href: 'https://www.linkedin.com/in/xander-linzel' }, { label: 'GitHub', value: 'github.com/xlinzel', href: 'https://github.com/xlinzel' }, { label: 'ResearchGate', value: 'researchgate.net/profile/Xander-Linzel', href: 'https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Xander-Linzel' }, { label: 'Résumé', value: 'Resume.pdf', href: 'assets/Resume.pdf' }, ], }; const PROJECTS = [ { id: 'litho', index: '001', year: '2026', title: 'Galvanometer Scanning Lithography', kicker: 'Ultrafast optics · Nanofabrication · Instrument design', blurb: 'High-precision galvanometer-based scanning lithography platform for ultrafast laser nano-machining. Modular Thorlabs cage architecture targeting diffraction-limited 612 nm features over a ~1 mm² field, at an order of magnitude less cost than commercial platforms.', hero: 'assets/litho-system-hero.png', tone: 'crimson', pdf: 'assets/Lithography_System_Proposal.pdf', pdfLabel: 'Full system proposal · 6 pp', specs: [ { k: 'Spot size', v: '612 nm', s: '40× / NA 0.65, 780 nm' }, { k: 'Step resolution', v: '40.5 nm', s: '15 µrad galvo, 16-bit DAQ' }, { k: 'Sample FOV', v: '0.4 – 1.6 mm', s: '40× / 20× / 10× swap' }, { k: 'Total system cost', v: '$13.3k USD', s: '~10× cheaper than COTS' }, ], capabilities: [ 'Diffraction-limited 612 nm spot via 40×/0.65 NA objective with intentional 1.14 fill ratio at the back aperture', 'Sub-50 nm sample-plane positioning from 15 µrad galvo step resolution and 16-bit NI USB-6002 DAC', 'Real-time dose control via AOMO 3200-124 acousto-optic modulator (~70% first-order efficiency, 780–850 nm)', 'Thorlabs GVS001 galvo pair in 4f relay configuration; LSM54-850 telecentric f-theta scan lens', 'Olympus-standard infinity-corrected train (180 mm tube lens) — interchangeable 10×/20×/40× objectives', 'Vectorized scan paths (~9,800 step-limited addressable positions) without raster artifacts', 'In-situ CMOS imaging path; modular cage system swaps subsystems without disturbing the rest of the train', ], summary: [ { h: 'System role', b: 'Designed at IQC as a research-grade ultrafast lithography platform that bridges maskless flexibility and diffraction-limited resolution. Every subsystem (AOM relay, beam expander, galvo relay, imaging path) drops out of the cage train without disturbing its neighbours — supporting both a stripped minimum config and the full-capability build.', }, { h: 'Optical chain', b: 'A 5× Galilean expander conditions the 780 nm input. A half-wave plate sets polarization into the AOM, bracketed by a 4f relay. Two GVS001 galvos in an orthogonal 4f-conjugated configuration feed the LSM54-850 f-theta scan lens, which couples through a 180 mm Olympus tube lens into a swappable objective.', list: [ { k: 'Fill @ 40×', v: '1.14 — full-NA, slight aperture clip' }, { k: 'Fill @ 20×', v: '0.93 — near-optimal' }, { k: 'Fill @ 10×', v: '0.70 — under-fill, FOV-maximised' }, ], }, { h: 'Resolution analysis', b: 'Step-to-spot ratio of ~1:15 at the 40× configuration satisfies Nyquist with margin. ~9,844 step-limited addressable positions across the field versus ~651 spot-size-limited — ample overhead for smooth vector trajectories. The 16-bit USB-6002 resolves a single galvo step at every supported V/° scale; a 14-bit alternative was rejected for skipping ~2.8 galvo steps per DAQ LSB.', }, { h: 'Cost & access', b: 'Total BOM lands at approximately $13,263.76 USD (~$20,983.67 CAD) for the full configuration — roughly an order of magnitude cheaper than comparable commercial scanning lithography platforms. A documented minimal-configuration path drops the AOM relay, beam expander, and imaging camera for further savings without touching the resolution path.', }, ], status: 'Active · documented', }, { id: 'sanddune', index: '002', year: '2026', title: 'Sand Dune · Refractive Index Gradient Measurement System', kicker: 'Imaging · Quantitative optics · Software', blurb: 'Custom Background-Oriented Schlieren rig and desktop application for high-resolution refractive-index mapping of transparent media. Optical hardware, FFT cross-correlation pipeline with sub-pixel CMM refinement, validation, and Poisson surface reconstruction in one coherent system.', hero: 'assets/schlieren-hero.png', tone: 'mono', pdf: 'assets/BOS_Report.pdf', pdfLabel: 'Full design + validation report · 24 pp', specs: [ { k: 'Lens', v: '25 mm fixed', s: 'apochromatic upgrade path' }, { k: 'Backgrounds', v: '6 patterns', s: '40 / 60 % fill, 0.10–0.75 mm dots' }, { k: 'Sub-pixel solver',v: 'CMM bicubic', s: 'FFT cross-correlation' }, { k: 'Reconstruction', v: 'Masked Poisson', s: 'Frankot–Chellappa optional' }, ], capabilities: [ 'Quantitative measurement of weak refractive disturbances — the regime where interferometry is impractical and shadowgraphy lacks resolution', 'Repeatable rig with circular-mask reconstruction domain matched to the optical aperture of the holder', 'Blue-filtered LED backlight to suppress chromatic aberration without an apochromatic lens', 'Six in-house background patterns tuned for the 4–5 px/dot sweet spot used by FFT cross-correlation', 'Windowed FFT correlation + CMM bicubic sub-pixel refinement, with optional progressive image deformation', 'Vector-field validation stage before reconstruction; masked sparse Poisson solver with Frankot–Chellappa fallback', 'Desktop application: load → parameters → calculations → pipeline → visualization → save panels', 'Development-verified precision with a documented minimum-resolvable gradient and detection-margin analysis', ], summary: [ { h: 'What BOS measures', b: 'The system measures the gradient of optical path length through a transparent sample — not refractive index or thickness independently. A reference image (no sample) and a disturbed image are compared; local pattern shifts in the background give the OPL gradient field, which is integrated to a relative surface map.', }, { h: 'Optical layout', b: 'A camera with a 25 mm fixed-focal-length lens images a printed dot background through the specimen region. Four geometric parameters (Zd, Za, f, Ppx) are set during assembly. Illumination is a full-brightness LED panel — incoherent, to avoid speckle — with a blue filter narrowing the bandwidth to suppress chromatic edge fringing on dot boundaries.', }, { h: 'Processing pipeline', b: 'A three-stage flow orchestrated by a Session class that owns Correlator, Reconstruction, and VectorField modules:', list: [ { k: 'Stage 1', v: 'Image prep · window grid · FFT cross-correlation · CMM bicubic sub-pixel refinement · optional progressive image deformation' }, { k: 'Stage 2', v: 'Vector-field validation — outlier rejection before reconstruction' }, { k: 'Stage 3', v: 'Surface reconstruction via masked sparse Poisson (default) or Frankot–Chellappa (optional)' }, ], }, { h: 'Validation strategy', b: 'Image-based precision metric, artifact diagnostics, supplementary software checks, and repeatability runs. The report derives a minimum resolvable gradient for the current setup and compares it against expected worst-case gradients to give a concrete detection margin — not just a software demo, but a characterised instrument.', }, ], status: 'Built · validated', }, { id: 'uwsio-removed', index: '003', year: '2024 — ongoing', title: 'UWSiO · 5D Optical Storage in Glass', kicker: 'Research team · Femtosecond lithography · Leadership', blurb: 'Founded and lead a 21-person team developing 5D optical data storage in fused silica via femtosecond-laser written voxels. Architected the Class-4 laser platform and integrated lithography stack from the ground up.', hero: null, tone: 'placeholder', specs: [ { k: 'Team size', v: '21', s: 'nanotech engineers' }, { k: 'Medium', v: 'Fused silica', s: '5D voxel writing' }, { k: 'Laser', v: 'Class 4 fs', s: 'in-house build & alignment' }, { k: 'Stage', v: 'Build-out', s: 'writing rig integration' }, ], capabilities: [ 'Full Class-4 femtosecond laser system — assembly, alignment, and beam characterisation in-house', 'Integrated lithography platform for polarisation-encoded voxel writing in fused silica', 'Project & resource leadership for a 21-person engineering team across hardware, software, and materials sub-groups', 'Long-horizon roadmap from instrument bring-up to scientific demonstration of multi-bit-per-voxel storage', ], summary: [ { h: 'Premise', b: 'Femtosecond pulses focused into fused silica produce nanoscale birefringent structures. The slow-axis orientation and retardance can each carry information — five degrees of freedom per voxel:', list: [ { k: '3 axes', v: 'spatial position (x, y, z) inside the glass' }, { k: '4th', v: 'slow-axis orientation of the induced birefringence' }, { k: '5th', v: 'retardance magnitude — independent intensity channel' }, ], }, { h: 'My role', b: 'Founded the project and lead the team end-to-end: technical direction, recruiting, sub-team structure, vendor selection, optics and laser-safety architecture, and the integration roadmap that ties laser bring-up to the writing rig and read-out path.', }, ], status: 'Active · team', }, ]; const EXPERIENCE = [ { id: 'irradiant', company: 'Irradiant Technologies', role: 'Photochemistry & Optical Design R&D Engineer', location: 'Boston, MA', dates: 'Sept 2025 — present', type: 'Industry · R&D', bullets: [ 'Developed and optimized photosensitive silver-reduction material platforms — characterising chromophore photophysics and thermoviscosity modulation across 4+ material systems for sub-micron multi-photon 3D lithography', 'Engineered a full-stack hardware + software metrology system for refractive-index measurement of transparent low-index substrates, achieving high-resolution characterization and saving an estimated $80K+ in external development costs', 'Advanced high-fidelity 3D micro-electronic systems and packaging architectures under DARPA\u2019s AMME program, directly supporting proposals that secured over $4M in contract awards', 'Maintained and optimized ultra-fast pulsed femtosecond laser systems for multi-photon 3D lithography — optical alignment, beam characterization, and process parameter development achieving sub-500 nm resolution', ], tech: ['Femtosecond lasers', 'Two-photon polymerization', 'Photochemistry', 'Metrology', 'Class-4 safety', 'DARPA AMME'], rating: 'Outstanding', ratingNote: 'University of Waterloo co-op employer evaluation.', quotes: [ { text: 'Xander has been an invaluable member of our team, making significant contributions to the materials, mechanical, and metrology departments over the course of his co-op. His work was crucial for meeting important milestones, including a multi-million dollar DARPA award. He is an excellent communicator and team-player, capable of working independently and conducting research at the PhD level. Overall, his performance has far exceeded expectation, he\u2019s very bright and enthusiastic, we\u2019d love for him to return.', name: 'Patrick Sullivan & Sheilan Sinjari', title: 'Irradiant Technologies · patricksullivan.uk@gmail.com · sheilansinjari@gmail.com', }, ], }, { id: 'iqc', company: 'IQC — Nano-Photonics & Quantum Optics Lab', role: 'Research Assistant', location: 'Waterloo, ON', dates: 'Sept 2024 — present', type: 'Research · Academic', bullets: [ 'Led design and fabrication of Bragg gratings inside hollow-core photonic crystal fibers to enhance slow-light effects and light-matter interactions for quantum-repeater photon-memory systems', 'Developed femtosecond-laser irradiation techniques to modify the refractive index of optical materials, leveraging multi-photon and avalanche ionization for precision microstructuring', 'Designed a galvanometer-based scanning lithography system for nano-scale machining — targeting 612 nm diffraction-limited resolution, sub-50 nm positioning precision, and real-time AOM dose control at ~10× lower cost than commercial platforms', ], tech: ['Photonic crystal fibers', 'Fs-laser writing', 'Quantum repeaters', 'Galvanometer scanning', 'AOM modulation'], rating: 'Outstanding', ratingNote: 'University of Waterloo co-op employer evaluation.', quotes: [ { text: 'During his co-op this winter, Xander managed to take from \u201Czero to one\u201D a research problem that my lab has been kicking around on and off for the past decade. Xander has shown an incredible level of leadership and motivation and made excellent progress on a completely new experimental direction for this problem. The problem involves producing a Bragg grating inside a hollow-core optical fibre, which has potential applications ranging from enhanced photon\u2013photon interaction to the development of new types of lasers. Xander managed to quickly replicate and extend the past experimental results and then established a new experimental direction for this project, with very promising initial results, using high-energy femtosecond laser pulses.', name: 'Michal Bajcsy', title: 'IQC, University of Waterloo · mbajcsy@uwaterloo.ca', }, ], }, { id: 'uwsio-exp', company: 'UWSiO', role: 'Founder & Team Lead', location: 'Waterloo, ON', dates: '2023 — present', type: 'Team · Leadership', bullets: [ 'Founded and lead a team of 21 nanotechnology engineers developing 5D optical data storage in fused silica via femtosecond-laser lithography', 'Architected the Class-4 fs laser + integrated lithography platform from the optical bench up', 'Manage project timeline, resource allocation, sub-team structure, and end-to-end technical development across hardware, software, and materials', ], tech: ['Leadership', 'Fs-laser systems', '5D data storage', 'System integration'], allowQuotePlaceholder: false, }, { id: 'kmrobota', company: 'KM-RoBoTa SA', role: 'Intern, Electromechanical Design', location: 'Renens, Switzerland', dates: 'May — Sept 2024', type: 'Industry · Mechanical', bullets: [ 'Independently designed and constructed a 2-metre robotic system replicating the locomotion biomechanics of an extinct species for evolutionary biorobotics research', 'Played a key role in the design, control, and biomechanical evaluation of a multi-million-dollar robotic system and two additional platforms — replicating extinct and extant species\u2019 locomotion for commercial and research use', ], tech: ['Robotics', 'Mechanical design', 'Biomechanics', 'CAD'], rating: 'Outstanding', ratingNote: 'University of Waterloo co-op employer evaluation.', quotes: [ { text: 'Xander is an outstanding engineer. Even at his young age, he handles many concepts expected of a graduate engineer and has a great capacity to learn new things. This is reflected in his work output. Our company is heavily based on research and development tasks, which means that every day there is a new challenge and different ways to attack such challenges. Xander\u2019s quick mind and willingness to learn fit perfectly with such endeavors, where he successfully delivered more than expected. He always goes beyond his tasks by reporting them with great clarity and detail.', name: 'Kamilo Melo', title: 'CEO, KM-RoBoTa SA · kamilo.melo@km-robota.com', }, ], }, ]; const SKILLS = [ { group: 'Optics & Photonics', code: 'OPT', blurb: 'Designing and aligning the laser systems behind every project I work on.', items: ['Ultra-fast pulse lasers', 'Two-photon polymerisation', 'Photonic crystal fibers', 'Polarization quantum systems', 'Schlieren / BOS imaging', 'Class-4 laser safety'], }, { group: 'Fabrication & Metrology', code: 'FAB', blurb: 'Hands-on with the instruments — sample prep through characterisation.', items: ['SEM', 'Optical microscopy', 'Raman / FTIR / UV-Vis', 'X-ray diffraction', 'Ellipsometry', 'Direct-write lithography', 'Soldering'], }, { group: 'Software & CAD', code: 'CAD', blurb: 'Mechanical, optical, and FEM design tools used day-to-day.', items: ['Fusion / SolidWorks', 'Ansys / FEMM', 'AutoCAD', 'Lumerical', 'Zemax', 'Linux · Git'], }, { group: 'Programming', code: 'DEV', blurb: 'Instrument control, image processing, and scientific computing.', items: ['C / C++', 'Python', 'MATLAB', 'PyTorch / TensorFlow', 'OpenGL', 'VBA'], }, ]; const AWARDS = [ { y: 'Jan 2025', k: 'First in Class Engineering Scholarship', s: 'Top student in cohort, by academic performance' }, { y: 'Feb 2025', k: 'President\u2019s Research Award', s: 'University of Waterloo' }, { y: 'Sept 2023', k: 'President\u2019s Scholarship of Distinction', s: '95%+ overall application average' }, ]; const PROJECTS_VISIBLE = PROJECTS.filter(p => !/^uwsio/.test(p.id)); window.PORTFOLIO_DATA = { PROFILE, PROJECTS: PROJECTS_VISIBLE, EXPERIENCE, SKILLS, AWARDS };