Monday 2 November 2020

VPHA status update 2.11.2020 - November Networking ... , ALD OpenLearning, Erratum, ALD Stories...

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

 From: Puurunen Riikka <> 

Sent: maanantai 2. marraskuuta 2020 16.27
To: Puurunen Riikka <>
Subject: VPHA status update 2.11.2020 - November Networking, ALD OpenLearning, Erratum, ALD Stories...

 Dear VPHA contributors and prospective contributors,

 A year has passed since the previous update on the Virtual Project on the History of ALD (VPHA), copy here.

 While there has been no actively coordinated activities in VPHA within the past year, still, there has been progress taking place related to understanding and spreading info of the history of ALD and the two independent inventions. Below, you find links to blog posts that tell more of an Aalto OpenLearning platform on ALD; discuss the future of the vph-ald.com website; analyse an erratum written on an article that deals with the history of ALD; and share of a podcast in the Beneq ALD stories podcast, episode on the history of ALD, where I had the honor of being interviewed.  

Friday 23 October 2020

Registration open for 2020 November Networking – ALD at Aalto University, Part 1: Public Webinar

Continuing the tradition (?) started in 2019, a networking event will be organized around atomic layer deposition (ALD): 2020 November Networking – ALD at Aalto University. The event will take place on November 25 and 26, 2020.

Due to COVID-19, in 2020, the event will be fully online in Zoom. The program will be in two parts:

  • Part 1: Public webinar is open for anyone to attend and has high-level invited speakers: Dr. Jonas Sundqvist, Dr. Tuomo Suntola and Dr. Angel Yanguas-Gil. Additionally, there will be tutorials by Prof. Riikka Puurunen and Prof. Matti Putkonen. (See the webpage & program for details.)
  • Part 2: Local networking is aimed for local (Finland-based) participants. The core of  Part 2 will be an online poster session where submissions from doctoral students, postdocs and other researchers are welcome. Additionally, there will be brief introductions to research groups, companies and projects, and a presentation by Prof. Timo Sajavaara on the characterization of ALD films. For the poster session we hope to create an online experience that resembles a regular conference’s poster session -- let’s see how it works out.

The registration link and all related info, including a preliminary program, are found in the event website: https://www.aalto.fi/en/events/2020-november-networking-ald-at-aalto-university. Registration was opened on 21.10.2020 and will close for participation with presentation on 11.11.2020 and for participation without presentation 22.11.2020.

Saturday 17 October 2020

ALD Stories podcast: Episode 2 on the History of ALD

On October 16, 2020, ALD stories podcast Episode 2 was published, where Riikka Puurunen -- coordinator of the Virtual Project on the History of ALD (VPHA) -- was interviewed by representatives of Beneq Oy.


The Episode 2 was centered around the history of atomic layer deposition (ALD), but was also a "fireside chat" on many other topics. Mentioned were for example: conformality; catalysis; 40 Years of ALD in Finland – Photos, Stories (FinALD40 exhibition); Baltic ALD 2014 conference; story of Suntola’s atomic layer epitaxy; two almost parallel inventions of ALD; Beneq applab opening in St. Petersburg 2013; molecular layering; 1st international conference on atomic layer epitaxy 1990; international ALD conference series; November Networking – ALD at Aalto University; Millennium Technology Prize; Virtual Project on the History of ALD; ALD window; misconception of full monolayer growth per cycle for ideal ALD; conformality test concept & saturation profile & lumped sticking coefficient.

Persons mentioned, at least: Outi Krause, Suvi Haukka, Tuomo Suntola, Sven Lindfors, Arto Pakkala, Victor Drozd, Valentin Aleskovskii, Angel Yanguas-Gil, Jonas Sundqvist. Companies mentioned: Microchemistry, Neste, Beneq, Lohja, Picosun.

This podcast should be interesting for those interested in the history of ALD and the two independent inventions (atomic layer epitaxy and molecular layering). For example, it shares details related to the birth of the two ALD history essays in Chemical Vapor Deposition journal, which have not been presented earlier. 

The podcast is available in at least via:

Tuesday 9 June 2020

Analysis of "Erratum: “History of atomic layer deposition and its relationship with the American Vacuum Society” [J. Vac. Sci. Technol. A 31, 050818 (2013)]"

A correction has been recently published related to a scientific review article on the history of atomic layer deposition (ALD). The correction is entitled "Erratum: “History of atomic layer deposition and its relationship with the American Vacuum Society” [J. Vac. Sci. Technol. A 31, 050818 (2013)]" and it is authored by G. N. Parsons, J. W. Elam,  S. M. George, S. Haukka,  H. Jeon,  W. M. M. Kessels,  M. Leskelä, P. Poodt, M. Ritala, and S. M. Rossnagel. It is published in Journal of Vacuum Science & Technology A 38 (2020) 037001; https://doi.org/10.1116/6.0000143As the title indicates, the article corrects an article published earlier in the same journal, by the same authors: Journal of Vacuum Science & Technology A 31 (2013) 050818; https://doi.org/10.1116/1.4816548.

This blog post analyses, what exactly has changed.

Paragraph corrected describing the early days of the molecular layering origin of ALD

The publication (https://doi.org/10.1116/6.0000143) says that the first two and the last two sentences of the fourth paragraph of Section II, which describes molecular layering, are changed. 

The new, updated paragraph has not been recreated in full. To help the scientific ALD community, I have here attempted to recreate the corrected paragraph.

Saturday 25 April 2020

Farewell to european-ald.net? Future of vph-ald.com?


Related to COST network "MP1402 - Hooking together European research in atomic layer deposition (HERALD)", https://www.cost.eu/actions/MP1402/#tabs|Name:overview, the european-ald.net website appears to no longer exist. When exactly did the website disappear, is not clear to the blog author, but it was not accessible on April 21, 2020 (see Twitter). The Internet archive contains some snapshots from the site, see e.g. https://web.archive.org/web/20190116224057/https://www.european-ald.net/.

The european-ald.net website had lots of useful contents. At the time of writing this blog post, it was unclear to the author if the vanishing is of permanent nature. Websites come with a cost and need maintenance, and it is understandable that they are not forever. If the european-ald.net is permanently gone, it is not the first useful ALD-related site to disappear: an earlier blog post discussed the ending of aldpulse.com (http://aldhistory.blogspot.com/2016/11/aldpulsecom-stops-and-moves-into-history.html). The Final Achievement Report of the HERALD COST action remains accessible on the COST site, https://www.cost.eu/actions/MP1402/#tabs|Name:overview. Thank you once more to Dr. Simon Elliott for setting up and skilfully coordinating the HERALD COST network, and to all who participated. To this blog's author, the HERALD COST network was certainly useful.

Related to the vph-ald.com website that collects together the materials of the Virtual Project on the History of ALD (VPHA), the same principles appear as for any other website.