Friday 29 November 2019

Happy 45th anniversary, ALD in Finland - Aalto ALD OpenLearning platform opens

Exactly forty-five years ago, on November 29, 1974, the first patent on Atomic Layer Epitaxy (FIN 52359) was filed by Suntola and Antson.

Five years ago, the same day, materials of the exhibition materials of the "40 Years of ALD in Finland - Photos, Stories" (#FinALD40) were released for public; they are still accessible via the ALDCoE website and the VPHA website.

Today, the Aalto ALD OpenLearning site is opened for public. You can access it via the general link https://openlearning.aalto.fi/ and the direct link https://openlearning.aalto.fi/course/view.php?id=100.

Also today, at Aalto University an event is organized: November Networking - ALD at Aalto University event. We have 63 participants registered, webpage https://blogs.aalto.fi/catprofopen/ald-networking-nov-2019/.

Happy 45th anniversary, atomic layer deposition (ALD) in Finland!  

Thursday 7 November 2019

VPHA status update 7.11.2019: November Networking ... and request to recommend ALD reviews

The email below was sent to 79 VPHA contributors and 70 prospective contributors.

From: Puurunen Riikka <riikka.puurunen@aalto.fi>
Sent: torstai 7. marraskuuta 2019 14.17
To: info @ vph-ald.com
Cc: Puurunen Riikka <>
Subject: VPHA status update 7.11.2019: November Networking ... and request to recommend ALD reviews

Dear VPHA contributors and prospective contributors,

With this email, I would like to update you recent progress around the interest area of the Virtual Project on the History of ALD (VPHA) since the previous VPHA status update on July 9.

1. “November Networking – ALD at Aalto University”. This is an event to be organized at Aalto University on November 29 afternoon, open for anyone to attend. In addition to local presentations and posters, there will be an international invited talk (Prof. Ruud van Ommen). If someone from the VPHA collaborators is interested to participate, you are most welcome to do so; poster presentation slots are still available (re-registration needed), and one can also come to network without any presentation. More info of the event and links below.

2. Request to recommend review articles on ALD. Along with November Networking – ALD at Aalto University (29.11.2019), the plan is to open an Aalto OpenLearning site related to Atomic Layer deposition, aimed to benefit the global ALD community. The site will start with small initially, mainly linking to existing contents, with the purpose to expand later in contents. The first original item to be created is a listing of recommended reviews on ALD.

To build a balanced, justified recommended reading list for ALD reviews, I welcome all VPHA contributors and prospective contributors (and others as well!) to write and share recommendations for their favourite ALD review(s) in recommended-ALD-reviews-evolving-file (it is a Google Docs file). More information in the blog post: http://aldhistory.blogspot.com/2019/11/advance-info-on-openlearning-site-and-request-to-recommend-reviews.html, reposted from Catalysis Professor’s Open.

Friday 1 November 2019

Advance info on OpenLearning site on Atomic Layer Deposition + request to recommend ALD reviews

Advance info: On Nov 29, 2019, a new OpenLearning site is planned to open on atomic layer deposition (ALD) at the http://openlearning.aalto.fi platform. The site is meant to benefit the global ALD community and operate mostly in English; occasionally, the site may link to ALD learning materials on other languages. The site will grow with time and initially mainly link to contents that are already openly existing. 
Among the materials to be created for the site is a (living) list of recommended reviews. According to the list created in the Virtual Project on the History of ALD (VPHA, http://vph-ald.com*), link here (which continues lists published in 2005 in https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1940727 and in 2013 in https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4757907), over 200 reviews on ALD have been published. Two hundred reviews is obviously too many for any individual to read. A shorter list would be meaningful, skill keeping the full list easily accessible. 
I welcome anyone globally, who sees the value of the initiative to field, to help build a list of recommended reviews. Please recommend reviews that you think would be useful to include, and provide a brief justification with your recommendation in your own words. Please recommend only reviews authored by others than yourself or your close relatives.** All recommendations are to be collected together in one place called recommended-ALD-reviews-evolving-file (it is a Google Docs file). This file will be a living document and have © Authors (all rights reserved); it thus NOT allowed to copy contents to third-party sites without explicit permission by the respective authors***. 
The open learning site on ALD and recommended review list are both new initiatives. Hopefully the new learning site and materials can complement (not replace!) existing teaching materials and efforts and thereby help newcomers to enter the field of research and development in ALD. 
Riikka Puurunen, Espoo, Finland November 1, 2019
* Although the website ends with .com, although there is nothing commercial there. Another ending (.org, .net, …) could have in hindsight been more desciptive of the contents.
** This follows the policy in use e.g. in Wikipedia of not proposing a wikipage for yourself – if it is important, someone else will propose it.
*** Of all authors for the whole document, or of the authors of the text in question for smaller parts.
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Virtual Project on the History of ALD (VPHA) - in atmosphere of Openness, Respect, and Trust

Wednesday 14 August 2019

Available: VPHA poster at AVS ALD 2019

The VPHA poster on the ALD doctoral thesis list was updated, as planned, for the AVS 19th International Conference on Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD 2019) featuring the 6th International Atomic Layer Etching Workshop (ALE 2019)https://ald2019.avs.org/. Figure 1 of the poster below. The poster will be included in the AVS collections, and it is currently available via the http://vph-ald.com website.
  • Link to poster: here 
  • Link to abstract: here
  • Link to supplementary information - with full author list: here
The doctoral thesis collection is still certainly missing entries. Suggestions for additions are welcome. Please preferably provide the information via the Google Sheets file, which all can edit: VPHA-thesis-to-be-added.

*********************
Virtual Project on the History of ALD (VPHA) - in atmosphere of Openness, Respect, and Trust

Tuesday 16 July 2019

Email communication to ALD 2019 poster coauthors, 2

Email communication related to poster at ALD 2019 https://ald2019.avs.org/, sent to 77 coauthors. 

From: Puurunen Riikka <...>
Sent: tiistai 16. heinäkuuta 2019 15.33
To: info@ vph-ald.com
Cc: Puurunen Riikka < ...>
Subject: VPHA ALD 2019 Poster updated version 16.7.2019

Dear ALD 2019 VPHA poster coauthors,

The VPHA poster to ALD 2019 https://ald2019.avs.org/ (Twitter: #ALDALE2019) has been now updated with new figures, as planned, and also with several added theses (1x the Netherland, 5 x Italy). Other small changes made to the poster are listed below. Many thanks to the collaborators who were active in proving and updating thesis info, for making the updated figures, and giving small comments.

Monday 15 July 2019

Email communication to ALD 2019 poster coauthors

Email communication related to poster at ALD 2019 https://ald2019.avs.org/, sent to 77 coauthors. 

From: Puurunen Riikka <>
Sent: maanantai 15. heinäkuuta 2019 16.10
To: info@ vph-ald.com
Cc: Puurunen Riikka 
Subject: VPHA Poster draft to ALD 2019: final superficial check DL 16.7.2019 (noon GMT+3)

Dear ALD 2019 VPHA poster coauthors,

Please find attached a draft version of the VPHA thesis list poster for the ALD 2019 conference, https://ald2019.avs.org/ (Twitter: #ALDALE2019).

Tuesday 9 July 2019

VPHA status update 9.7.2019: conferences, ALD thesis list, Zenodo, ORCID

The email below was sent to 79 VPHA contributors and 69 prospective contributors.

From: Puurunen Riikka < ...>
Sent: tiistai 9. heinäkuuta 2019 12.10
To: info@ vph-ald.com
Cc: Puurunen Riikka <... >; jonas.sundqvist <...>
Subject: VPHA status update 9.7.2019: conferences, ALD thesis list, Zenodo, ORCID / poster thesis list DL 11.7.

Dear VPHA contributors and prospective contributors, 

With this email, we would like to update you with the progress in Virtual Project on the History of ALD (VPHA) since the previous general VPHA status update on April 28

Major steps forward have been the following:   
·       As many contributors supported the idea of Zenodo sharing, and noone opposed it,  Zenodo community for the Virtual Project on the History of ALD has been created: https://zenodo.org/communities/vpha/. The community contains currently only one document, more to come. Before uploading more, we need to collect a list of ORCID identifiers of our contributors (more on that below). 
·       Poster on the doctoral thesis list on ALD has been created and presented at the EuroCVD-BalticALD 2019 conference (https://www.eurocvd-balticald2019.lu/). Twitter notes: #CVDALD2019 #VPHA

You can find below more information on the next steps in VPHA:

Saturday 6 July 2019

Available: VPHA poster at EuroCVD-BalticALD 2019

Earlier post announced making available the abstract of VPHA-made poster at EuroCVD-BalticALD 2019 conference (https://www.eurocvd-balticald2019.lu/), "Overview of doctoral theses on Atomic Layer Deposition collected in the Virtual Project on the History of ALD". Now - since some days - you can also access the poster itself via the VPHA website (later, hopefully, Zenodo, too): http://vph-ald.com/VPHApublications/VPHA_Luxembourg2019_poster_v11_CLEAN.pdf. One of the two images from the poster below - otherwise the poster is covered with info of ~500 thesis worldwide, in a rather small font size.

Thanks to encounters at the conference, we have already received many additions to the thesis list.

Tuesday 18 June 2019

Email communication to EuroCVD-BalticALD poster coauthors, 2

The message below was sent to 76 co-authors.  

From: Puurunen Riikka <...>
Sent: tiistai 18. kesäkuuta 2019 14.08
To: info@ ...vph-ald.com
...
Subject: Updated version of VPHA EuroCVD-BalticALD poster

Dear EuroCVD-BalticALD co-authors,

The poster has been updated with several missing theses (also some from Japan!), removing several duplicate theses, adding missing translated titles, correcting many typos of all sorts, updating the figures, and re-ordering the thesis list (year + alphabetical).

Friday 14 June 2019

Email communication to EuroCVD-BalticALD poster coauthors

Email communication related to the poster at https://www.eurocvd-balticald2019.lu/sent to 76 co-authors.

From: Puurunen Riikka < ...>
Sent: perjantai 14. kesäkuuta 2019 19.33
To: info ... vph-ald.com
Subject: VPHA EuroCVD-BalticALD poster DRAFT for commenting / DL 17.6., please

Dear EuroCVD-BalticALD co-authors,

A draft of the VPHA poster to the EuroCVD-BalticALD conference (https://www.eurocvd-balticald2019.lu/) is finally ready for viewing and commenting to all - please find a pdf attached. (My apologies that the poster draft comes so late – just on time, still, I believe.) Abstract related to this poster can be viewed in: http://vph-ald.com/VPHApublications/VPHA_poster-abstract_EuroCVDbalticALD-2019.pdf

Available: VPHA abstract for EuroCVD-BalticALD 2019

The abstract of the VPHA poster for the EuroCVD-BalticALD conference in Luxembourg (https://www.eurocvd-balticald2019.lu/) has just been made available via the VPHA website. Title: "Overview of doctoral theses on Atomic Layer Deposition collected in the Virtual Project on the History of ALD". You can access the abstract here: http://vph-ald.com/VPHApublications/VPHA_poster-abstract_EuroCVDbalticALD-2019.pdf.

Monday 27 May 2019

New Zenodo community: Virtual Project on the History of ALD (VPHA)

In a recent VPHA status update, sharing VPHA abstracts and other materials via Zenodo.org was proposed. This suggestion received wide support.

To enable the sharing of the abstracts and later other works, a "community" has been created in https://zenodo.org. The name of the community - not surprisingly - is "Virtual Project on the History of ALD (VPHA)", link: https://zenodo.org/communities/vpha/.



Sunday 28 April 2019

VPHA status update 28.4.2019 - poster abstracts accepted + Zenodo sharing?

The email below was sent to 78 VPHA contributors and 69 prospective contributors.  

From: Puurunen Riikka < >
Sent: sunnuntai 28. huhtikuuta 2019 10.44
Subject: VPHA status update April 2019 - poster abstracts accepted + Zenodo sharing?

Dear VPHA contributors and prospective contributions,

Since the previous general VPHA status update on January 17, we submitted two abstracts for posters at coming conferences - 1st abstract to EuroCVD-BalticALD in June in Luxembourg and 2nd abstract to ALD 2019 in Bellevue, Washington in July. It is my pleasure to inform you with this email that both abstracts have been accepted for presentation.

We will start to prepare the posters likely in May - expect more communication on this later. The purpose is to continue building on the ALD doctoral thesis list so that it will be as complete as possible (up to the end of 2018) when the posters are made, and at the same time it will allow conference participants to view it and notice missing items and help us make it still more complete for the review article which is being planned.

Related to the two abstracts and as well longer-plan archiving of VPHA, we propose to share the abstracts publicly already.

Friday 8 March 2019

Millennium Technology Prize to Tuomo Suntola - photos Millennium Talks May 23, 2018

In the an earlier post, photos were shared from the Millennium Technology Prize Gala on May 22, 2018, where Tuomo Suntola received the prize for atomic layer deposition technology.  This post continues from where the previous post (Feb 10) left, and shares photos from the open lecture that Suntola gave on May 23, 2018, at Aalto University.

What is atomic layer deposition (ALD)? The 2018 Millennium Technology Prize winner Tuomo Suntola explains the contents of the lecture to come. (Photo: Riikka Puurunen, 23.5.2018)

Saturday 16 February 2019

VPHA brief communication / ALD 2019 poster abstract SUBMITTED

The message below was sent to 78 VPHA contributors.

From: Puurunen Riikka < >
Sent: 16. helmikuuta 2019 6:26
To: info at vph-ald.com
Subject: VPHA brief communication - ALD 2019 poster abstract SUBMITTED 15.2.2019

Dear VPHA contributors,

For your information, an abstract has been submitted yesterday to the ALD 2019 conference https://ald2019.avs.org/ (Twitter: #ALDALE2019) in Bellevue, Washington, USA entitled “Overview of doctoral theses on Atomic Layer Deposition worldwide - outcome of the Virtual Project on the History of ALD”.

Tuesday 12 February 2019

VPHA brief communication / Poster abstract to ALD 2019 for commenting / changes DL 13.2., please

The email below was sent to 78 VPHA contributors.

From: Puurunen Riikka < ...>
Sent: 12. helmikuuta 2019 13:38
To: info at vph-ald.com
Subject: VPHA brief communication / Poster abstract to ALD 2019 for commenting / changes DL 13.2., please

Dear VPHA contributors,

As planned (though a bit later than planned), we are preparing an abstract again, for a poster at the ALD 2019 conference: https://ald2019.avs.org/.

Sunday 10 February 2019

Millennium Technology Prize 2018 to Tuomo Suntola - more photos from May 22

On May 22, 2018, Tuomo Suntola was awarded the prestigious Millennium Technology Prize (MTP) for his Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) invention, awarded every two years for a life-changing innovation. Before Suntola, the MTP in 2016 was awarded to Frances Arnold. Without ALD - an invisible technology as such - Moore's law could not have continued, and we would not have the computing power (computers, smartphones) of today. The BALD Engineering and Atomic Limits blogs are good sources for recent views on the impact and development of ALD. For more on the Millennium Technology Prize, please view the Technology Academy Finland (TAF) website https://taf.fi/; next call for nominations will open in April 2019.


Dr. Tuomo Suntola (left) received the Millennium Technology Prize as the inventor of Atomic Layer Deposition technology. In the middle of the photo, Sauli Niinistö, president of Finland (middle), who handed the prize. At the right, Marja Makarow (professor, chair of Technology Academy Finland). The prize ceremony was organized on May 22, 2018 in Helsinki (Kaapelitehdas).  Photo by Riikka Puurunen, shared in Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

As the drafter of the nomination letter, I was honoured to be invited to the gala event & prize ceremony on May 22, 2018. For me, the prize and the event was literally a dream come true. The event was historical throughout. I wished that more colleagues from the ALD community could have shared the event and the joy and pride.

To record this historical event and to share its details with others, as a hobbyist photographer I took many photos and several short videos at the event. Some I have shared in the ALD History Blog post right after the event, in a video collection on Youtube, and in photos released to Creative Commons.

Now I have gone through my collections again and here I am sharing more photos. I link to the already published Youtube and Wikimedia Commons contents, where appropriate. The photos uploaded in Wikimedia Commons have a Creative Commons (CC) licence that allows everyone to freely use and distribute the photos - the only requirement is that you credit the source and if you make modifications, you share the new versions similarly openly (CC BY-SA 4.0). If you would like to reuse some of the photos shared in the blog but which are not in Wikimedia Commons, please contact me directly - you can find my contact info through the Aalto University website.

Espoo, February 10, 2018
Riikka Puurunen


Monday 4 February 2019

On how I came up with the "periodic table of ALD processes"


IUPAC, https://www.iypt2019.org/: "1869 is considered as the year of discovery of the Periodic System by Dmitri Mendeleev. 2019 will be the 150th anniversary of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements and has therefore been proclaimed the "International Year of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements (IYPT2019)" by the United Nations General Assembly and UNESCO."

In atomic layer deposition, for which Tuomo Suntola in 2018 received the Millennium Technology Prize, the periodic table is a central tool. This was recently highlighted in the Atomic Limits blog, who created a colourful update of the periodic table of ALD processes which I originally created for a review article in 2005 and which was updated for another review article in 2013. In this post, I tell a bit more on how that "periodic table of ALD" was born and updated. But first: a joint picture with Dmitry Mendeleev in St. Petersburg State University, taken - while visiting Prof. Victor Drozd in November 2015 - to honor this great chemist from St. Petersburg.

Then-Dr. Riikka Puurunen (now Prof.) and statue of Prof. Dmitry Mendeleev in the hall of St. Petersburg State University. Photo taken upon request by Prof. Victor Drozd. November 11, 2015. Originally published in http://aldhistory.blogspot.com/2015/11/travel-notes-st-petersburg-puurunen.html.

To the story.

Friday 1 February 2019

VPHA brief communication / Baltic ALD poster abstract SUBMITTED

The message below was sent to 78 VPHA contributors.

From: Puurunen Riikka <...>
Sent: 1. helmikuuta 2019 16:06
To: info @ vph-ald.com
Subject: VPHA brief communication / Baltic ALD poster abstract SUBMITTED

Dear VPHA contibutors,

For your information, an abstract has been submitted yesterday to the EuroCVD-Baltic ALD conference in Luxembourg, https://www.eurocvd-balticald2019.lu/. The final submitted abstract is attached for your reference. Minor changes made since the previous version:

Tuesday 29 January 2019

VPHA brief communication / Baltic ALD poster abstract, final check

The message below was sent to 78 VPHA contributors.

From: Puurunen Riikka <...> 
Sent: 29. tammikuuta 2019 20:33
To: info@ ...
Cc: Puurunen Riikka <...>
Subject: VPHA brief communication / Baltic ALD poster abstract, final check

Dear VPHA contributors,

The poster abstract to the Baltic ALD conference has been updated for affiliations and acknowledgements. Please find attached the abstract for final check.

Tuesday 22 January 2019

VPHA brief communication / new (postponed) DL 25.1. for poster action item

Brief VPHA communication sent to 76 contributors copied below.  

From: Puurunen Riikka <>
Sent: 22. tammikuuta 2019 11:07
To: info ... vph-ald.com
Cc: Puurunen Riikka
Subject: VPHA brief communication / new (postponed) DL 25.1. for poster action item
Importance: High

Dear current VPHA contributors,

For your information: as we anticipated - see VPHA status update 17.1.2019 - the abstract submission deadline for the Baltic ALD conference has been postponed. The new extended deadline is Jan 31, 2019, see https://www.eurocvd-balticald2019.lu/. We are grateful for this extension.

Thank you to the several people who responded within the original DL (20.1.): sent information of new affiliation, proposed new theses to the list, commented that the abstract contents are ok, and confirmed authorship or will to be just acknowledged. Notes of updates to come are show in real time here <link removed>.

With the extended submission deadline, we can agree a new internal deadline related to updating info for the poster abstract. We can agree that author - and thesis! - information that comes in by Jan 25 can be accounted for in the abstract. Information sent in later than that can still be accounted for in the poster itself.

Thursday 17 January 2019

VPHA status update 17.1.2019




From: Puurunen Riikka >>
Sent: 17. tammikuuta 2019 19:45
Subject: FW: VPHA status update 17.1.2019 / brief action item DL 20.1., please
Importance: High

Dear prospective VPHA contributors,

Best wishes for 2019!

The VPHA status update below was just submitted to all VPHA contributors <attachment and hyperlinks removed>.

As you can read, we are planning to activate VPHA in 2019 again. We will start with poster presentations related to the doctoral thesis list gathered.

New contributors are welcome to join the VPHA activities. You are most welcome to join, and you can ask your ALD-informed colleague to join, too.

Best regards,
Riikka Puurunen, voluntary VPHA coordinator
---
Riikka Puurunen, Associate professor, Catalysis Science and Technology
Aalto University, School of Chemical Engineering, Department of Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering
Visiting address: Kemistintie 1, 02150 Espoo, Finland <>
Mail address: P.O. Box 16100, FI-00076 AALTO, Finland
Tel: <>, email:
<>, LinkedIn, @rlpuu


Friday 4 January 2019

VPHA ALD doctoral thesis list to be completed to the status of end of 2018

In VPHA, we have in the past years been building a list of doctoral theses related to atomic layer deposition (ALD). The list currently contains already over 350 entries - nice draft illustration of the contents of the unfinished list below - thanks Felix Mattelaer for this!
 


It would be great, of course, if we could have a complete list - the whole research field of ALD would greatly benefit. There are certainly many theses missing from the list still - likely at least from China, Japan, Korea, and likely many other countries, too. We have set it as a goal to finalize the list in VPHA to the status at the end of year 2018, the year Suntola and ALD received the Millennium Technology Prize.

To complete the list, we welcome everyone to check if the list is complete and propose additions.

New article on ALD for catalyst preparation in press, preprint available

First article related to catalyst preparation by atomic layer deposition (ALD) originating from my work as a professor at Aalto University has just been accepted for publication in Topics in Catalysis, special issue on the 18th Nordic Symposium on Catalysis. I have used ChemRXiv for sharing the preprint, so everyone can access the unformatted article already. Link: https://doi.org/10.26434/chemrxiv.7204847.v2.

Why to share information of an accepted article / preprint in ALD History Blog? It is because the Introduction of the article is historically valuable. Namely, it contains original references to both "molecular layering" related and "atomic layer epitaxy" related early ALD works on catalysis. As - to the knowledge of the undersigned - none of the existing reviews written on ALD for catalyst preparation adequately describes and cite the early works, the two passages in the Introduction including the cite references become valuable as a "microreview" on the area. Worth spreading word about.

Riikka Puurunen, Espoo, Finland, January 4, 2019

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Virtual Project on the History of ALD (VPHA) - in atmosphere of Openness, Respect, and Trust