Story of Atomic Layer Deposition by Sven Lindfors, from Picosun newsletter December 2008

”I borrowed a bottle of hydrogen sulfide and, suddenly, there was a glowing golden growth covering the glass tube. We´d cracked it: this was the theory of advanced Atomic Layer Epitaxy taking physical form in front of my eyes.” 

"Story of Atomic Layer Deposition by Sven Lindfors, Chief Technology Officer and a Member of the Board of Directors of Picosun," initially published in the Picosun newsletter December 2008. The Picosun newsletter is no longer online and the story is republished in the ALD History Blog with the kind permission by Picosun Oy. Earlier related posts were "Sven Lindfors (1945-2017) in memoriam" and "Remembering Sven Lindfors - Svenin muistolle, by Tuomo Suntola". 

Screen capture from Picosun News, December 2008. With permission by Picosun. 

“We had numerous unsuccessful test runs behind us. Dr Tuomo Suntola knew that in order to proceed, we needed to advance from using pure chemical elements to an exchange reaction based on carrier gases and sulphides,” says Sven Lindfors, at the time working as a key technician for Dr Suntola’s team.

Remembering Sven Lindfors - Svenin muistolle, by Tuomo Suntola

This post continues upon a previous post, Sven Lindfors (1945-2017) in memoriam, by sharing the words of Tuomo Suntola at the funeral of Sven Lindfors on June 2, 2017. The words (in Finnish) are published with permission by Tuomo Suntola.

Sven Lindforsille 2.6.2017

- Osanottoni Svenin omaisille ja läheisille

VPHA status update 4.6.2017 - Millennium Prize, Lindfors, HERALD Riga, VPHA's future

The status update copied below was sent to 76 current and 47 prospective VPHA contributors. 

---

From: Puurunen Riikka
Sent: 04 June 2017 09:10
Subject: VPHA status update June 2017 - Millennium Prize support, Lindfors in memoriam, HERALD Riga, future of VPHA

Dear current and prospective VPHA contributors,

This is the second update of the Virtual Project on the History of ALD (VPHA) in year 2017. The previous VPHA status update was set on March 22, 2017, link here.

This update shares information on the following topics:

1. Millennium Technology Prize 2018 nomination - supporting letters welcome
2. Mr. Sven Lindfors in memoriam
3. Other posts
4. Future activities in VPHA

HERALD COST MP1402 event in Riika (Riga), Latvia

On Monday May 22nd, I visited Riika (Riga), Latvia, giving an invited talk at an event called "ALD nanotechnology: advances, prospects and applications" organized within the framework of the HERALD COST action MP1402 (http://www.european-ald.net/). The programme of the event, as provided by the organizers in advance, is copied at the end of this post.  

My presentation was entitled "On the history and future of ALD: VPHA, conformality analysis, mechanisms". The presentation explained the Virtual Project on the History of ALD (more volunteers are still welcome); introduced the PillarHall ALD conformality test structures developed at VTT (with a modelling example, too!) where we welcome more proof-of-concept partners; and pointed out the existing different views and a need to understand better the "model ALD process" trimethylaluminium-water. The presentation was dedicated to the memory of Mr. Sven Lindfors (1945-2017). At the end, I called for support letters to nominate Suntola and ALD for the Millennium Technology Prize 2018 (more to come on this in another post later). 

The presentation slides can be viewed in SlideShare. Additionally, Aalto University uses a tool called Panopto, with I tried, and with which I very easily could record my talk for later reference. A tool to be used in the future, too! The Panopto record can be viewed here.     

Some photos related to the event/this post below.

Sven Lindfors (1945-2017) in memoriam

Sven Lindfors, "Svenkka", pioneer of ALD, in memoriam

Sven Lindfors, "Svenkka", a core pioneer of an atomic layer deposition (ALD), born November 25, 1945, passed away April 15, 2017 in Espoo, Finland. An obituary written by Tuomo Suntola and coworkers was published in the main Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat today.  

I had the honour to cross paths with Sven Lindfors several times during our careers, first as a young master's thesis worker at Microchemistry Ltd. (1998) and later (2004-) as a research scientist at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland. At VTT in 2004, it was my pleasant task to take into use the ALD reactor that VTT had bought from Sven Lindfors's company Picosun. The reactor was the first of its kind and was installed in the Micronova clean room, where it is still used, along with newer reactors installed later. Back at that time, Picosun had two employees. Today, thirteen years later, Picosun personnel counts over forty and Picosun itself has become a global brand.

Sven Lindfors was a visionary, composed of sunshine and thunder. As I knew Svenkka, for him, no need related to ALD reactors ever passed unsolved.

BALD Engineering blogs about Tuomo Suntola's overview on ALD

Jonas Sundqvist from BALD Engineering has published a nice blog post discussing the ALD webpage of Dr. Tuomo Suntola, the Finnish inventor of ALD. See the full post at http://baldengineering.blogspot.de/2015/11/tuomo-suntola-overview-on-atomic-layer.html. In the words of Jonas Sundqvist:

"I think that we all today have to thank Suntola and his co-workers like Sven Lindfors < > and others for making all this possible. Just think about it - would we all today enjoy living and working in a fast growing technological field of ALD without this work  that started in the 70´s and persisted through until it went global in the 90´s and beyond until today?"