Generation and control of clean energy is an important research area for any society. Riza and co-workers are developing novel extreme environment optical sensors needed for Zero Emissions fossil fuel-based power generation systems. In addition, Riza and coworkers have developed a new class of laser beam profilers such as the world’s first all-digital and hybrid optical beam profiler instruments using MEMS and new minimally invasive and all-digital profilers using Liquid Crystal technology. New tools for optical surface metrology have also been invented and demonstrated using acousto-optics and liquid crystals that enable nano-scale measurements.