IFAE People

Dr. Jorge Jimenez was born in Santiago de Chile, where he received a B.E. degree in Industrial Engineering. In 2008, he relocated to Barcelona, Spain where he completed a MSc. degree in Control and Robotics, and a PhD in Control, Robotics and Vision at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) - BarcelonaTech.

Dr. Jimenez has nearly two decades of experience in scientific instrumentation. His career began at the ESO-VLT Observatory in Chile, where he was a valuable member of the Instrumentation Team. In this role, he handled various day-to-day responsibilities, primarily focused on troubleshooting and maintaining the readout electronics system of CCDs and IR detectors. He also contributed to vacuum and cryogenics tasks and provided support for instrument’s integration, commissioning and upgrades.

His journey into research and development activities began as a Research Engineer at the Institute of Space Sciences (ICE-CSIC-IEEC) and later at the Institute for High Energy Physics (IFAE) in Spain, where he became a part of the PAUCam camera team. The successful integration and commissioning of this instrument at the WHT telescope in the Canary Islands marked a significant milestone in his career. As IFAE’s Detectors Engineer, he played a key role in characterizing 22 scientific-grade CCDs and was directly involved in integrating and testing the front-end readout electronics system (MONSOON). Dr. Jimenez also lent his expertise to the DESI project, where he played a key role in developing a custom readout electronics system for a multi-fiber spectrograph at the Kitt Peak telescope in Arizona, USA. Afterwards, in May 2016, IFAE became a part of the ASTEROID H2020-COMPET consortium, focusing on the development of a SWIR detector entirely manufactured in Europe and funded by the EC. As the project coordinator for ASTEROID tasks at IFAE, he assumed direct responsibility for the detector, readout electronics, control and cryo-vacuum systems. This project served as the foundation for his PhD thesis, which is centred on instrumentation and detector characterization for space and ground-based astronomy.

Throughout his career, Dr. Jimenez consistently demonstrated exceptional responsibility, enthusiasm, precision and a strong ability to collaborate within a team. His academic background and extensive experience have equipped him with a comprehensive understanding of various engineering fields, including vacuum and cryogenics systems, electronics, mechanics, automatic control. machine vision and opto-mechanics. This wide knowledge enables him to approach problems with a well-rounded perspective and propose effective solutions.

Dr. Jimenez’s primary research focus is on light detectors and instrumentation for both space and ground-based astronomy. His work spans a wide range of devices, including photodiodes, CMOS and CCD detectors, and IR focal plane arrays. He is also deeply involved in the development of readout electronics for scientific detectors, cryostat and cryogenic technologies, as well as image vision, analysis, and data reduction techniques.

He have participated on the following projects:

ESO-VLT (www.eso.org )

Dr. Jimenez served as an Instrumentation Engineer on the Instrumentation Team for the Very Large Telescope (VLT) in the Atacama Desert, Chile. In this role, he was responsible for the technical-CCDs used for guiding and active optics correction on the world’s largest optical telescope. Additionally, he contributed to the maintenance, troubleshooting and upgrades of 13 state-of-the-art instruments designed for ground-based astronomy.

PAUCam (www.paucam.org )

PAUCam is an optical imaging camera for the William Herschel Telescope (WHT), located in the Canary Island, Spain featuring a 1 deg² FoV with 18 Hamamatsu 4k x 2k CCDs. On the PAUCam project, Dr. Jimenez was responsible for the characterization of the 18 CCDs and the implementation of the readout electronics system, which is based on the 2 MONSOON (NOAO) controller.

DESI-GFA (www.desi.lbl.gov )

The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) maps the universe’s expansion by capturing optical spectra of millions of galaxies and quasars. Installed on the Mayall 4-meter telescope in Arizona, USA, DESI constructs a 3D map extending up to 11 billion light-years, using advanced spectroscopic techniques to explore dark energy’s effects. Dr. Jimenez contributed to DESI’s Guide, Focus, and Alignment (GFA) system by characterizing the resulting cameras and participating in the integration, sealing, and gluing of CCDs to protect the detectors from the challenging Arizona desert environment.

ASTEROID (www.asteroidh2020.eu )

ASTEROID, an EU-funded H2020-COMPET project, aims to empower Europe to manufacture high-performance infrared focal plane arrays of HgCdTe and 18 µm pitch for scientific and astronomical missions. With five European partners, it focuses on developing technology, defining product designs, and establishing an industrial manufacturing line for future prime scientific projects. Dr. Jimenez has been involved on the whole project as Project Coordinator at IFAE, being responsible for the design and development of the optical setup as well the detector operability characterization.

ESA-ARRAKIHS (www.arrakihs-mission.eu )

The ARRAKIHS mission is an ESA F-class space mission focused on studying dark matter by analyzing its gravitational effects on satellite galaxies within galactic halos. Utilizing two binocular telescopes on a 300 kg satellite, it observes faint stellar streams around 115 galaxies up to 130 million light-years away, testing various dark matter models. Dr. Jimenez serves as the Project Coordinator at IFAE and is responsible for the detector characterization of the two flight model Teledyne H2RG SWIR detectors.

ATHENA (https://projectnetboard.absiskey.com/website/athena )

The project ATHENA strengthens Europe’s leadership in high-tech imaging technologies by advancing VLWIR imagers through innovative material growth and doping techniques. It enables applications in automation, health, security and earth observation. A robust European consortium drives development, aligning with the EU’s Chips Act to ensure industrialization, competitiveness, and sovereignty in imaging systems. Dr. Jimenez serves as Project Coordinator at IFAE, responsible for the HgCdTe IR detector characterization and acting as system engineer for the entire setup, including the cryostat, optical setup, readout electronics and AIV.

• Jorge Jiménez, Cristobal Padilla and Antoni Grau. A novel MCT focal plane array thermally stressed at low temperatures. In IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement. In IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement, volume 72, pages 1-7, article n 4503007. IEEE, 2023. DOI: 10.1109/TIM.2023.3260264. JIF@2021:5.332, 10/64 (Q1).

• Jorge Jiménez, Cristobal Padilla and Antoni Grau. Performance of a ground and space-based MCT detector stressed at low temperature. In X-Ray, Optical, and Infrared Detectors for Astronomy X, volume 12191, pages 99084J. SPIE, 2022. DOI: 10.1117/12.2629595.

• Jorge Jiménez, Antoni Grau and Cristobal Padilla. Integration of a testbench for the optical and thermal characterization of near-infrared detectors used in ground and space-based astronomy. In IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement, volume 70, pages 1-7, article n 5006107. IEEE, 2021. DOI: 10.1109/TIM.2020.3046923. JIF@2020:4.016, 11/64 (Q1).

• Jorge Jiménez, Antoni Grau and Cristobal Padilla. Integration of an optical setup for the characterization of near-infrared detectors used in ground and space-based astronomy. In Engineering Proceedings, volume 6, number 1, article n 68. MDPI, 2021. DOI:10.3390/I3S2021Dresden-10152.

• Jorge Jiménez, Cristobal Padilla and Antoni Grau. Cryo-vacuum system for low temperature thermal cycling of MCT detectors. In Advances in Optical and Mechanical Technologies for Telescopes and Instrumentation IV, volume 11451. SPIE, 2020. DOI:10.1117/12.2561379.

• Jorge Jiménez, José M. Illa, Juan de Vicente and Ricard Casas. DESI-GFA testbench facilities for CCDs characterization. In Ground-based and Airborne Instrumentation for Astronomy VI, volume 9908, pages 2476 – 2482. SPIE, 2016. DOI: 10.1117/12.2232430

• Jorge Jiménez, José M. Illa, Laia Cardiel-Sas, Juan de Vicente, Javier Castilla and Ricard Casas. The PAUCam readout electronics system. In Ground-based and Airborne Instrumentation for Astronomy VI, volume 9908, pages 99084J. SPIE, 2016. DOI: 10.1117/12.2232393

• Jorge Jiménez, José M. Illa, Laia Cardiel-Sas, Juan de Vicente, Javier Castilla and Ricard Casas. PAUCam readout electronics assembly, integration and test (AIT). In Ground-based and Airborne Instrumentation for Astronomy V, volume 9147, pages 91474Q. SPIE, 2014. DOI: 10.1117/12.2054894.