Prof. Volker Schünemann
Volker Schünemann studied physics at the University of Hamburg and did his PhD thesis under the supervision of Alfred X. Trautwein at the University of Lübeck, where he worked on the synthesis and characterization of iron nanoparticles in zeolites. This was his first exposure to temperature- and field-dependent Mössbauer spectroscopy. Subsequently, in 1993, he did postdoctoral work on bimetallic FeRh particles in the group of W.M.H. Sachtler at Northwestern University, Evanston, USA. Here the focus was on catalytic properties in CO hydrogenation. After his return in 1994 to the group of Alfred X. Trautwein to the University of Lübeck, he started to work on biological applications of Mössbauer spectroscopy and investigated different classes of iron-containing proteins such as heme and iron-sulfur proteins. In 2004, he became a professor at the University of Kaiserslautern and established a laboratory for temperature- and field-dependent Mössbauer spectroscopy. The focus of his group is on the study of the function and electronic and dynamical properties of iron centers in nature (iron proteins) and chemistry (e.g., spin crossover compounds, molecular magnets, biomimetic iron complexes and catalysts) and using conventional and synchrotron-based Mössbauer spectroscopy. Quantum chemical calculations based on density functional theory are also used to better understand electronic and dynamic properties.