Virtual issue of Chemistry of Materials in Honor of Professor Markku Leskelä

A "virtual issue" - an electronic collection of articles centered on a topic - was published by Chemistry of Materials in July 2018 to celebrate the influential career of professor Markku Leskelä at the verge of his retirement. The virtual issue was published just in time for the ALD 2018 conference, so the conference could celebrate at the same time the 2018 Millennium Technology Prize for Dr. Tuomo Suntola as well as the virtual issue of Prof Leskelä. 

The full virtual issue can be accessed through: https://pubs.acs.org/page/vi/MarkkuLeskela.html. It contains scientific articles published by Leskelä, as well as scientific articles influenced by Leskelä's works, in different journals by ACS. 

A related editorial by his close colleague and first student, Prof. Mikko Ritala and by Chem. Mater. editors is accessible at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.chemmater.8b02742, entitled "In Honor of Professor Markku Leskelä." 

As a personal note by the author of ALD History Blog, I would like to add that although none of my own articles made it to this virtual issues (for editorial reasons, perfectly understandable), there is a recent collaborative work with Prof. Markku Leskelä published in an ACS journal, which I would like to acknowledge in the spirit of this virtual issue. It is on analysing the conformality of ALD films: 

• Mattinen, Hämäläinen, Gao, Jalkanen, Mizohata, Räisänen, Puurunen, Ritala, Leskelä, "Nucleation and Conformality of Iridium and Iridium Oxide Thin Films Grown by Atomic Layer Deposition," Langmuir 32 (2016) 10559-10569; DOI: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.6b03007. 

Additionally, I would like to acknowledge the collaborative massive review article written together with Prof Leskelä and coworkers on the crystallinity of ALD films. The review was published in Applied Physics Reviews by AIP (and thus not eligible for the virtual issue) and is among the ISI Highly Cited papers at the moment: 

• Miikkulainen, Leskelä, Ritala, Puurunen, "Nucleation and Conformality of Iridium and Iridium Oxide Thin Films Grown by Atomic Layer Deposition," Journal of Applied Physics (Applied Physics Reviews) 113 (2013) 021301; DOI: 10.1063/1.4757907. 

Furthermore, I would like to share that the work of Prof. Leskelä and collaborators has in many ways influenced my much-cited (>1300 citations currently, WoS) ALD review published in 2005 in Applied Physics Reviews by AIP. In this review, (i) the history of ALD including the two independent discoveries were discussed to my knowledge the first time in a major ALD review in English, (ii) the basic surface chemistry concepts of ALD were described, and (iii) a close look was taken on the surface chemistry of the trimethylaluminium-water process, referencing to my knowledge all articles published on the topic by that time. 

• Puurunen, "Surface chemistry of atomic layer deposition: A case study for the trimethylaluminum/water process," Journal of Applied Physics (Applied Physics Reviews) 97, 121301 (2005); DOI: 10.1063/1.1940727. 

As the last item, I would like to thank and acknowlege Prof. Markku Leskelä for participating in the Virtual Project on the History of ALD and co-authoring the review article with 62 co-authors, "Review Article: Recommended reading list of early publications on atomic layer deposition—Outcome of the “Virtual Project on the History of ALD”  Journal of Vacuum Science & Technology A 35, 010801 (2017); https://doi.org/10.1116/1.4971389. This review was published by AVS (AIP) and therefore again not eligible for the virtual issue in question.