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

Congratulations Dr. Tuomo Suntola for the 2018 Millennium Technology Prize!

Dr. Tuomo Suntola has been awarded the 2018 Millennium Technology Prize for the Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) innovation. Warmest congratulations!   

• Press release by the Technology Academy Finland: https://taf.fi/2018/05/22/2018-millennium-technology-prize-for-tuomo-suntola-finnish-physicists-innovation-enables-manufacture-and-development-of-information-technology-products/

In the view of the undersigned, Virtual Project on the History of ALD (VPHA, http://vph-ald.com/) has been crucial for realizing the prize this year. Drafting the nomination letter was a natural continuation of the VPHA ALD history activities. The scientific publications created in VPHA describe the history of ALD in a balanced way and thus directly supported the prize. Wikipedia updates have been important in spreading the information beyond the immediate scientific ALD community. Thank you to all who have been involved in these voluntary works and for the numerous supporting letters provided!

• List of three scientific articles on the history of ALD, created within ALD, below.
• A longer list of ALD-history-related publications is available at http://vph-ald.com/ALD-history-publications.html. 
• Previous ALD History Blog posts related to the 2018 Millennium Technology Prize here.
• Some photos of the events on May 22 and 23 at the end of the post. 

Dr. Tuomo Suntola deserves the prize extremely well for his breakthrough pioneering accomplishments in ALD technology. Suntola has always supported the ALD history activities by the undersigned; likewise, it has been great to feel the widespread support in the international ALD community for the prize to Suntola. I hope that the prize can still further unite the ALD community and spread understanding of this enabling "hidden technology" to the general public.

Congratulations Tuomo Suntola; congratulations the rest of us in the ALD community; let us enjoy this moment!