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/10.1116/6.0000143. As 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.

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

Molecular Layering in the 2018 Millennium Prize Nomination letter

In 2018, Dr. Tuomo Suntola received the Millennium Technology Prize (MTP) for his groundbreaking work on Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD). In addition to being a personal recognition to Suntola, the MTP 2018 was a great recognition to ALD as an enabler of many technologies and of the continuation of Moore’s law. The whole field has benefited.

In the Virtual Project on the History of ALD (VPHA), materials (publications, Wikipedia updates) have been created which supported the nomination. In summer 2017, it was a natural continuation of VPHA to write the MTP nomination letter for me in the name of my university.

ALD has been invented independently twice - under the name Atomic Layer Epitaxy by Tuomo Suntola in 1974, and under the name Molecular Layering by Valentin Aleskovskii and Stanislav Koltsov already in the 1960s (see, e.g., Wikipedia).

When writing the MTP nomination letter, in addition to describing Suntola’s groundbreaking work and the impact of ALD from all angles, I also - of course - I wanted to acknowledge the pioneering work of Aleskovskii and Koltsov, who both have already passed away.

ALD 2016: Travel notes

Updated 28.8.2016

The 16th International Conference on Atomic Layer Deposition ALD2016 (http://www.ald2016.ie), including the 3rd International Workshop on Atomic Layer Etching, was organized in Dublin, Ireland, July 24-27, 2016. I had a pleasure to participate at the conference as a speaker, poster presenter, and as an International Programme Committee member. This blog post shares my travel notes from conference, thereby continuing my series on travel notes first written for the ALD Russia 2015 workshop and thereafter for Baltic ALD 2015, my St Petersburg visit Nov 2015, and HERALD Helsinki seminar May 2016.

ALD 2016 conference chairs Simon Elliott and Jonas Sundqvist. Photo from Twitter, @jv3sund. 

Since the first American Vacuum Society Topical Conference on Atomic Layer Deposition  in Monterey CA 2001, the international ALD conference series organized every odd year in USA by the AVS and every even year outside USA in collaboration with AVS, has evolved into a major event that provides the best possible snapshot of ALD at the forefront of science at academia and industry alike. There were more than 800 registered participants at the meeting, of which about 50% were industrial; and about 400 presentations, of which about 10% were industrial. The conference lasted for three days and comprised maximum four parallel sessions and two days of poster sessions. All presentations were recorded and will be made available on a DVD after the conference (past DVDs can be bought from AVS by contacting heather@ avs.org).

ALD history at ALD 2016 Ireland

Prof Greg Parsons introducing Prof Anatoly Malygin to give a plenary talk at ALD 2016. Photo by Riikka Puurunen.

The ALD 2016 conference was a major step forward in advancing the understanding of the worldwide history of Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD). Progress took place at least in three ways:

1. Prof. Anatoly Malygin (St. Petersburg State Technological Institute (Technical University)) delivered an invited talk. ALD 2016 was the first time ever that a person representing the branch of ALD of "old Russian works" has presented a talk at the international ALD conferences. Great thanks Prof. Malygin delivering the talk as well as for the conference chairs Dr. Simon Elliott and Dr. Jonas Sundqvist for inviting him.

VPHA voting open DL Jun 15 - "conclusive reading list of early ALD publications"

Voting is now open to determine the conclusive recommended reading list of early ALD publications, as promised in the abstract of poster presentation of the Virtual Project on the History of ALD (VPHA) at the ALD 2016 Ireland conference.

• All VPHA co-authors can vote (there are now 64 co-authors)
• Everyone is welcome to become a VPHA co-author 

Voting will be made openly with one's own name and is open until June 15th. The organization is made with files that are openly available all the time:

• VPHA-voting-file 
• VPHA-voting-instructions
• VPHA-voting-ENTRY-file (everyone can edit)

More on the topic in the previous VPHA status update. Links to the three files can be found here http://vph-ald.com/VPHAopenfiles.html. Happy voting & see you in Ireland!

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

On the importance of defining the problem - What information is missing about the early days of ALD?

"It isn't that they can't see the solution. It is that they can't see the problem." These words have influenced me ever since I red them as a student of chemical engineering at Helsinki University of Technology (nowadays Aalto University) in mid-1990s. The words were written at the beginning of a chapter in the book of Chemical Reaction Engineering;* I was majoring in industrial chemistry with professor Outi Krause (of ALD, I knew nothing yet). I may have forgotten everything else that was written in that book, but these words made a permanent impact on me.

Beginning of a chapter in the book "Elements of Chemical Reaction Engineering" by H. Scott Fogler.* These words by G. K. Chesterton have stayed in my mind ever since seeing this. Photo by Riikka Puurunen. 

Virtual Project on the History of ALD (VPHA) started from a question: "What are the "Molecular layering" papers by Koltsov from "early 1960's?" This question I asked in the ALD - Atomic Layer Deposition LinkedIn group in the spring 2013. One can still find the question and the lively discussion that followed, here: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/1885076/1885076-238399494.
These words had caught my attention in the ALD Hall of Fame by aldpulse.com; they disturbed me as I did not know what exactly they referred to.

Molecular Layering essay by Malygin et al. published

It is my great pleasure to inform that the essay by Malygin et al. has finally been published. This is Item #8 in the VPHA Publication Plan.

Link: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/cvde.201502013/abstract

Abstract: This essay is dedicated to the history of creation and development of the molecular layering technique (ML) which, in the modern community of non-Russian scientists, is commonly referred to as atomic layer deposition (ALD). Basic research in the field of chemical transformations of solid surfaces using the ML method in the light of the “framework” hypothesis proposed by V. B. Aleskovskii in 1952 is discussed. A number of questions raised by international scientists including those involved in the Virtual Project on the History of ALD (VPHA, 2013), and scientists from conferences in Helsinki (Finland, May 2014.), Kyoto (Japan, June 2014), and personal communications amongst peers are addressed. For the first time in English, this article provides information about V. B. Aleskovskii and S. I. Kol'tsov who are closely associated with development of the ML technique in the Soviet Union. This paper also informs the scientific community about research groups currently engaged in ML research in Russia and introduces the scientific school of “Chemistry of highly organized substances”, founded and supervised by V. B. Aleskovskii. 

ALD in Wikipedia - status and surprises

Updating Wikipedia regarding the history of ALD is one of the goals that we have set in the Virtual Project on the History of ALD (VPHA). Today, I had a quick look at the status of ALD-related information in Wikipedia --- and got surprised.

Here are the main pages related to ALD - these are quite as expected.

• Atomic layer deposition
• Atomic layer epitaxy
• Tuomo Suntola

I did not find any pages related to Aleskovskii and Koltsov, who independently developed ALD in USSR under the name Molecular Layering, and also no dedicated page of Molecular Layering. 

Many surprises came, when I looked into the contents of the three pages.

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 status update 2015-11-18

This status update email below was sent on 18.11.2015 to all VPHA co-authors (38) and registered prospective co-authors (26). 

Would you would like to join the VPHA as a volunteer and as a prospective co-author receive these emails, please send an email to info@ vph-ald.com.

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Dear VPHA co-authors and prospective co-authors,

Things related to the Virtual Project on the History of ALD have proceeded during the previous weeks. Please find below updates regarding:

1.    Status of the ML essay

2.    Travel report from St Petersburg

3.    ALD History blog posts

4.    VPHA in numbers

5.    General scientific ALD history review

6.    Sponsoring of Open Access for the ML essay

New: VPHA ALD history translations file

A new file has been created: VPHA-translations. One can access it through http://vph-ald.com/VPHAopenfiles.html. In this file, we collect the translations made in the Virtual Project on the History of ALD (VPHA) for early publications on Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD).  The translations in this file are informal, work-in-progess type of translations made by VPHA volunteers. Changes, additions, removals are all possible.

As of 30.10.2015, the file contains two translations. Both represent parts significant academic theses regarding Molacular Layering, originally in Russian. One is the Doctor of science thesis by Aleskovskii in 1952 and the other the Candidate of Science (corresponds roughly to PhD) by Drozd in 1978. Thanks to Maria Berdova, Fred Roozeboom and Victor Drozd for the translations and for the permission to include them in this file for the referral by others.

Some comments have already been given in VPHA reading regarding these theses, written in the ALD-history-evolving file, also accessible through http://vph-ald.com/VPHAopenfiles.html. One can search with the current VPHA codes  {Aleskovskii1952} and {Drozd1978-PhD} to find them easily in the large file.  The Aleskovskii thesis already has several comments made by the VPHA authors; more comments on the significance are still welcome. Regarding the Drozd thesis, we would still need one more comment, to have the minimum number of three that we would like to have for each publication in VPHA.

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.