2015: a turning point in understanding the history of ALD

Recently, I concluded to a colleague that I think that year 2015 was a turning point in understanding the history of ALD. Maybe it is worth saying publicly in the ALD History Blog, why I think this is the case.

We started the Virtual Project on the History of ALD in 2013. In 2014, we made the FinALD40 exhibition, and there were VPHA presentations at Baltic ALD in Helsinki and the ALD 2014 conference in Kyoto, and I published the Suntola ALE essay. Why then do I think that 2015 was a turning point? There are two main reasons.

1. The International ALD Russia workshop was organized. This workshop brought together original developers of Molecular Layering, other ALD scientists from Russia, and people from the international ALD community, with participants from USA, Finland, The Netherlands, Belgium, Korea, and many more countries. VPHA was not directly involved in this organization; however, I am sure that VPHA had made the time ripe for this event to happen and to be so fruitful. (When I asked the question after Suntola's invited talk at the ALD 2004 conference in Helsinki, time was not yet ripe.) Travel report from the ALD Russia workshop here. 
2. The Molecular Layering - ALD history essay by Malygin et al. was published. This essay is historical, even revolutionary in the way how it describes the massiveness of the Molecular Layering works, which have remained unknown to so many scientist---for reasons which I do not fully understand. If only this essay had the Open Access status, so that everyone could access the information freely! If there are people/organizations who would like to sponsor the Open Access payment for this essay, maybe the status can still be changed.

ALD history blog is three months old - statistics shared

Today, it is exactly three months since the ALD History Blog http://aldhistory.blogspot.fi was created. After several months of hesitating (related LinkedIn post, March 14, 2015), I started the blog on October 25, 2015, as the need to share the progress in Virtual Project on the History of ALD (VPHA) and in general in understanding the history of ALD become overwhelming with the ALD Russia workshop (travel report here). In hindsight, I am glad that I started the blog: there has been plenty of topics to write about (I'd write more if I had more time) and the blog has found an audience, with an all-time average of 44 pageviews per day. For communicating the advances of VPHA to the virtual project group efficiently, the blog is irreplaceable.

Below, I share the all-time (=three-month) statistics of the ALD History Blog as enabled by Blogger: Overview, Post statistics, Traffic sources, and Audience.  Top-five countries in pageviews, in descending order, are: Finland, United States, Germany, France, and Russia. Recognized important referring sites are, for example, Twitter, LinkedIn, BALD Engineering blog and european-ald.net.

Last, I want to share my latest topic of hesitation. Should/could VPHA have its own page in Wikipedia? Opinions; pros and cons? You can share your views e.g. in discussion chain started a few days ago in Twitter.  

Top 10 viewer countries of the ALD History Blog all time Oct 25, 2015 to Jan 25, 2016.

Molecular Layering (ML) presentations at VPHA website

An essay is soon to be published of the "Molecular Layering (ML) branch" of Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) in the Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) journal:

• Essay by A. A. Malygin, V. E. Drozd, A. A. Malkov, V. M. Smirnov, "From V. B. Aleskovskii’s "Framework" Hypothesis to the Method of Molecular Layering/Atomic Layer Deposition", Chemical Vapor Deposition, in press (2015).

This essay will very nicely complement an earlier ALD history essay in the CVD journal, which I (Riikka Puurunen) wrote in close collaboration with the Finnish inventor of ALD Dr. Tuomo Suntola on the "Atomic Layer Epitaxy (ALE)" branch of ALD in 2014. 

• Essay by R. L. Puurunen, "A short history of Atomic Layer Deposition: Tuomo Suntola's Atomic Layer Epitaxy", Chemical Vapor Deposition 20 (2014) 332-344, doi: 10.1002/cvde.201402012. Open Access. Full essay.

While waiting for the ML essay to be published, we can already access some materials related to Molecular Layering through recent presentations of two authors of the essay, Prof. Anatoly Malygin and Prof. Victor Drozd.

ALD Russia 2015 workshop: travel notes by Riikka Puurunen

Below you find my travel report from the ALD Russia workshop in Dolgoprudny, Moscow region, September 2015. Originally, this travel report was published as a stand-along text through Google docs and also through through BALD Engineering blog. 

After the ALD Russia workshop, this ALD History blog has been created, and one travel report published in it (St. Petersburg, 2015, Puurunen). Since the ALD Russia workshop was historical in nature in many ways, and since it will be wise to collect ALD-history-related travel reports in one place, I want to publish the travel report here again. To this version, I have added a significant number of previously unpublished photographic material.

VPHA presentations at ALD Russia and Baltic ALD invite more people to join

In September 2015, two organisational presentations were published related to VPHA, first at ALD Russia in Dolgoprudny, Moscow region, and the following week at Baltic ALD in Tartu, with the goal to invite more people to join the VPHA reading work. The greatest need currently is for people who know both English and Russian languages. Also people with skills of Estonian, Finnish, French, German, and Japanese are needed (and maybe some languages not listed).

Publication details and links:

• Oral presentation, "Virtual Project on the History of ALD: overview and current status", by R. L. Puurunen, Yu. Koshtyal, H. Pedersen, J. R. van Ommen, J. Sundqvist, International workshop Atomic Layer Deposition Russia 2015, 21-23 September, 2015, Moscow-Dolgoprudny, Russia. Abstract. Slides. 
• Poster presentation, "Virtual Project on the History of ALD: overview and current status", by R. L. Puurunen, Yu. Koshtyal, H. Pedersen, J. R. van Ommen, J. Sundqvist, 13th International Baltic Conference on Atomic Layer Deposition, September 28-29, 2015, Tartu, Estonia. Abstract. Poster. 

Motivation of the VPHA, from the Baltic ALD poster:

"VPHA background: Why? What? When? ALD developed under the names • Molecular Layering ML; Молекулярное Наслаивание • Atomic Layer Epitaxy ALE Especially the work made under the name Molecular Layering has been poorly known and cited"

From the Baltic ALD poster, VPHA in numbers:

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Virtual Project on the History of ALD (VPHA), http://vph-ald.com, in atmosphere of Openness, Respect, and Trust.

VPHA status update 2015-10-21

An email status update was sent on October 21, 2015, to VPHA co-authors and prospective co-authors. Shortened version below. 

If you would like to get the full status updates by email, please contact the VPHA organizers by sending email to info@ vph-ald.com or through the LinkedIn ALD History group. The VPHA update emails are always sent with receiving addresses in the bcc field, to avoid large reply-to-all email chains. 

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Significant progress has taken place regarding the Virtual Project on the History of ALD within the past weeks. Please find below an update considering six topics.