CV

A summary of my professional and academic background.

Contact Information

Name Abdelfettah Hadij-ElHouati
Professional Title PhD in Integrated Photonics, Photonic Design Engineer
Location Lausanne, Switzerland

Professional Summary

Photonic design engineer with 8+ years of experience in silicon photonics R&D and industry, specialising in passive component design and EM modelling. Track record of delivering first-time-right designs and building design tools that accelerate development workflows.

Experience

  • 2022 - Present

    Lausanne, Switzerland

    Photonic Design Engineer
    LIGENTEC SA
    • Technical lead of chip-to-fibre interfaces, delivering SMF-coupled devices with < 0.3 dB insertion loss together with the fab and characterization teams.
    • Designed 50+ devices (spot-size converters, grating couplers, AWGs, star couplers) for the LIGENTEC PDKs and 10+ client projects.
    • Developed a Python framework around the Lumerical API for large-scale photonic simulations, adopted by 7+ engineers.
    • Delivered production-ready layouts with IPKISS and GDSFactory and ran feasibility analyses aligned with manufacturing capabilities.
  • 2017 - 2022

    Málaga, Spain

    Graduate Researcher
    Universidad de Málaga
    • Designed silicon photonic devices including on-chip beam shapers, metamaterial 2×4 hybrids, curved waveguide grating demultiplexers, grating couplers and large-scale steerable antennas.
    • Built a first-principles modelling tool for curved waveguide grating demultiplexers (MATLAB + RSoft) enabling multiple first-time-right designs.
    • Produced chip layouts (Python, Nazca Design) and characterised fabricated devices.
  • 2021

    Málaga, Spain

    Photonic Design Engineer (Contractor)
    Bioherent, S.L.
    System-level chip interface design and Gaussian beam analysis to optimise the beam shape for system integration.
  • 2021

    Ottawa, Canada

    Photonic Design Engineer (Contractor, remote)
    Carleton University
    Developed a design tool for tunable Bragg filters used by the team to design various filter configurations.
  • 2019

    Ottawa, Canada

    Visiting Researcher (4 months)
    National Research Council Canada
    Developed a design tool for curved waveguide grating WDM demultiplexers and designed a low-loss C-band demultiplexer for the SOI platform.
  • 2015 - 2017

    Málaga, Spain

    Undergraduate Researcher (BS & MS)
    Universidad de Málaga
    Developed a Floquet-Bloch analysis tool (RSoft FullWAVE FDTD) widely used by the team for periodic photonic structures, and designed apodized grating devices.

Education

  • 2017 - 2022

    Málaga, Spain

    PhD in Telecommunication Engineering (cum laude)
    Universidad de Málaga
    • Thesis: “Highly Efficient Distributed Bragg Deflectors for Silicon Photonic Waveguide Devices” (hdl.handle.net/10630/25858)
    • Supervisors: Prof. Íñigo Molina Fernández and Prof. Pavel Cheben
  • 2015 - 2017

    Málaga, Spain

    MS in Telecommunication Engineering
    Universidad de Málaga
    • Grade 9/10 (top 10%). Thesis: “Design and Analysis of a Monolithically Integrated Steerable Optical Antenna”
  • 2011 - 2015

    Málaga, Spain

    BS in Telecommunication Engineering Technologies
    Universidad de Málaga
    • Grade 9.24/10 (best of promotion). Thesis: “Design of Integrated Optical Demultiplexers”

Awards

  • 2022
    Best Student Paper Award
    ECIO 2022, European Conference on Integrated Optics
  • 2021
    Silicon Photonics PhD Student Contest 2021, Silver Prize
    Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd
  • 2018
    DEKRA Best Master Thesis in Telecommunication Engineering
    Official Association of Telecommunication Engineering of Southern Spain
  • 2016
    Best academic record, BS in Telecommunication Engineering Technologies
    Official Association of Telecommunication Engineering of Southern Spain
  • 2015
    Extraordinary End of Studies Prize and Best Thesis Prize (BS)
    Universidad de Málaga

Skills

Photonic design: Passive devices on SOI and SiN, Inverse design, Experimental characterization
EM simulation: FDTD, FEM, Mode analysis, EME, Lumerical, RSoft, COMSOL
PIC layout: IPKISS, GDSFactory, Nazca Design
Software & data: Python, MATLAB, C/C++, C#, Linux, Git, Pandas, Plotly
Other: AI-assisted design workflows (LLM agents), RF & microwave engineering

Languages

Spanish : Native
English : Fluent
French : Intermediate
Arabic : Intermediate