New Podcasts section in ALD OpenLearning site (Nov 20, 2021)

[post is a duplicate from the Catalysis Professor's Open blog by the same author: https://blogs.aalto.fi/catprofopen/2021/11/21/new-podcasts-section-in-ald-openlearning-site-nov-20-2021/]

Yesterday (Nov 20, 2021), a new section was published in the OpenLearning site on atomic layer deposition  (ALD). The site is available at the OpenLearning platform of Aalto University https://openlearning.aalto.fi/, direct link https://openlearning.aalto.fi/course/view.php?id=100 (can be found by searching for "ALD" or "atomic layer deposition").

The Podcasts section contains each podcast (that the author of this blog and the author/curator of the ALD OpenLearning site currently is aware of) as a separate "page" (as in defined the Moodle platform). Currently, the following podcasts have their own page: ALD Stories by Beneq, Nanovation, STG podcasts, Suomalaisten Kemistien Seura (a Finnish society), People Behind the Science and ALD Pulse.

In each page, named according to the specific podcast, direct links have been included to ALD-related episodes, which were available at the time of opening the Podcasts section (Nov 20, 2021). Most podcasts are in English. One podcasts in Finnish has also been linked to, and in the future more links to podcasts in other languages than English can also be included. The episodes in English contain interviews of many ALD scientists, including such internationally known names like Dr. Tuomo Suntola (the Finnish inventor of ALD), Prof. Seán Barry, Prof. Stacey Bent, Prof. Erwin Kessels, Prof. Mikko Ritala, Dr. Jonas Sundqvist, Prof. Ruud van Ommen and Prof. Charles Winter (list in alphabetical order, except for Suntola). The author of this blog (Prof. Riikka Puurunen) also had the honor of being interviewed for the ALD Stories podcast by Beneq (related to the history of ALD).

If some podcast or episode is missing from the list, I will be happy to add it. Please let me know of missing items -- email to firstname.lastname@aalto.fi (replace with my info) should work well. Also, if someone would *not* like to have their podcast/episode included in this collection, it can be removed -- please in such case contact me as well.

Espoo, Finland, November 21, 2021

Riikka Puurunen

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

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.

One year of ALD History Blog: some learnings

One year ago, I became a blogger: ALD History Blog was created on October 25, 2015 (it went public on October 28).

ALD History Blog was created predominantly to help in the coordination of the Virtual Project on the History of ALD (VPHA). Before the blog, I used email for coordination and additionally published short notes in Twitter (as @rlpuu) and in the LinkedIn ALD History group. Clear benefits of a blog are e.g. the wealth of contents that can be included (e.g., length of post, links, pictures, videos, ...) and the unlimited internet access/search engine visibility.

Blogging - similarly as the coordination of the VPHA - has brought along many new experiences and learnings. A year after starting the blog, I thought it would be a good idea to summarise the main learnings, to help others who might consider starting a topical science blog.

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).

New page in ALD History Blog: ALD Glossary

July 30, 2016, a new page has been created in ALD History Blog: ALD glossary: abbreviations and Twitter. While I have been thinking of setting up this page for a long time, the rapidly increasing use of Twitter in the ALD community and the recognition of the "best tweet" at ALD 2016 made the need immediate. The glossary lists (link) are not final but just a start; comments and suggestions for improvements are welcome.

For the Twitter hashtag list, I tried to trace back and describe there the first use of the hashtags. Sometimes, this was easy as the hashtag is uniquely used for ALD (#ALDep, #BalticALD, #FinALD40, ...); sometimes, this is more difficult as the hashtag is in multiple use in Twitter (e.g., #ALD2015, #ALD16, #ALD2016, #VPHA). In Twitter, no-one "owns" a hashtag and anyone can start using whatever they like, also one that is already in use. Twitter is by its nature chaotic; good hashtags are keywords which help to navigate through the chaos.

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.

ALD History Blog is half a year - statistics shared

ALD History Blog was initiated on October 25, 2016---exactly six months ago. To celebrate ALD History Blog's half-a-year journey, I want to share some statistics blog's reading. Similar posts were written also when the blog was three months and one month old.

When I started the blog, I had no experience on blogging, only Jonas Sundqvist's invaluable BALD Engineering ALD News blog as an example. I am very happy that I eventually dared to take the step and start the blog. Before entering the statistics, I would like to briefly review some of the learnings.
(i) For the progress of the Virtual Project on the History of ALD (VPHA, vph-ald.com), the blog has of course been instrumental. We would not have the same good progress without it.
(ii) The blog has given me the opportunity to learn of what it is to have a science project blog, and how one can attract attention to it. I have learnt how important it is to share information of new posts in professional social media. For new posts, which have not been shared this way, half a day can pass without one single person viewing the post. For new posts shared in Twitter and LinkedIn, in turn, readers appear instantaneously. Sharing in Twitter, systematically with a relevant hashtag (#VPHA #ALDep), has certainly further increased the audience of the posts.
(iii) Somewhat after creating this blog, I created a separate Twitter account (@aldhistoryblog) for sharing the posts, thus no more having a need to share them directly through my personal account (@rlpuu). I think that was a good step, helping to keep things organized. Would I in the future again be in charge of some larger scientific project/unit, I would certainly again consider setting up a separate Twitter account as a communications channel.

Then, to the ALD History Blog numbers during the first 6 months of the blog (numbers as of as of April 24, 2016).

Wikipedia, Suntola, forefront of science and Dynamic Universe

In a previous post, ALD in Wikipedia - status and surprises, I described the results of exploring ALD-related pages in Wikipedia. Today, I want to continue around the same Wikipedia topic, by sharing the story of how I got to know Dr. Tuomo Suntola, the Finnish inventor of ALD. This I do to shed light on the surprising content of his Wikipedia page, namely the fact that ALD is not mentioned there at all.

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?"