Application Scientist: Spectroscopy, Lasers & Scientific Instrumentation
Dr. Deepak K. Pandey
I make complex scientific instruments give results you can trust.
I work with lasers, vacuum chambers and detectors that catch single electrons and ions. I run them day to day, and when they misbehave I find out why. I also specify the software that records and analyses their data.
Experimental physicist · 9 years in research labs · Kassel, Germany
How one of our experiments works, slowed down. How it works →
What I do
How I can help your team
These are the parts of an application scientist's job, and where I have done each one so far.
Demonstrations
As a PhD volunteer I handled the technical setup and demonstrations at a national workshop on materials characterisation (IITRAM, 2019).
Training users
I have trained junior researchers on vacuum systems, high voltage and gas handling. In 2025 I gave an invited session on research methods to faculty and research scholars in Pune.
Method development
I calibrated the spectrometer's mass scale from its own data, accurate to 0.2 atomic mass units. When a waveplate scan mislabelled 28% of shots, I specified a hardware gate that drops every shot taken while it moves.
Troubleshooting
When a measurement goes wrong, I find the cause before I change anything. I showed by measurement that any signal on one input of our timing electronics scrambled every measured flight time. In my PhD I worked with a service engineer to get a rheometer, a flow-testing instrument, working again.
Documentation
I wrote operating instructions for our lab and set up the shared notebook our six-person team still uses. From 2020, almost every new member of my PhD group used my guides for our infrared and UV-visible spectrometers.
Planning measurement time
Measurement time at a synchrotron, a large shared light source, is fixed and scarce. I led the planning of one such slot with the host team. In Kassel I keep our spectrometer ready, from leak hunting to calibrations.
Now
What I'm working on now
Water, one molecule at a time
How do a few water molecules change the way a molecule behaves? I measure it with a laser and a spectrometer that records the electron and the ion from the same laser shot. Then I compare the results with quantum chemistry calculations.
Lab software I specified
I specify the software our spectrometer and laser measurements run on, and I check it against the physics before anyone trusts a number from it.
AI and data
In side projects I apply machine learning to sensor and energy data. Two are finished: next-day solar forecasts for the German grid, and engine-wear prediction on NASA data. A third, an AI assistant for sensor data, is in development.
Selected work
See it working
What draws me is the work itself: getting an instrument to give a clean answer, close to the people who use it.
Outside the lab I play badminton and run along the Fulda; I have run four half marathons since 2024.
Let's talk
Always happy to talk about instruments, measurement and new opportunities.