Volker Deckert

Volker Deckert is Professor for Physical Chemistry at the Friedrich-Schiller University and jointly as a department head at the Leibniz IPHT both in Jena, Germany. He obtained his Diploma and his PhD from the University of Würzburg, working on Raman spectroscopy. After a postdoc at the University of Tokyo he started his research on near-field optical spectroscopy, first at the ETH Zurich, then in Dresden and Dortmund before he finally came to Jena. In 2020, he received the Ellis R. Lippincott Award, "For on-going contributions to high resolution Raman spectroscopy in particular the realization of tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy, allowing label-free structural surface characterisation down to the single molecule level." He is a Fellow of Optica.

His research focusses on Raman spectroscopy, near-field optical microscopy, and plasmon enhancement. The major goal is to extend the limits of spatial resolution for label-free techniques, particularly for methods based on tip-enhanced Raman scattering (TERS). His research is mainly driven by questions related to chemical and/or bio-related problems that require structural information at the highest possible resolution. These studies then help us to understand underlying theoretical concepts of the often surprising lateral resolution.