VPHA website likely to retire in Aug 2024

Note on the future retiring of the VPHA website. 

The http://vph-ald.com has been paid for, for one more year (I do this personally). Countdown should start for this website; nothing is forever. 

I expect the #VPHA #ALDep website to be up until about August 15, 2024, and then move to history - nicely after #ALDALE2024.

VPHA started about ten years ago, with a visible launch at ALD 2013 conference. In VPHA, the main mission has been accomplished, and it is a good time to wrap up the project and the site. Scientific peer-reviewed publications created:

CVD 2014 ALE essay https://lnkd.in/gcTKZ-Kr
CVD 2015 ML essay https://lnkd.in/gne2sPfA
JVSTA 2017 review https://lnkd.in/gnyhUW5q

More communications should come on the topic of retiring the site later, before site goes down. My goal as the long-lasting VPHA coordinator is, of course, to save the valuable materials created. More on the "how" and "where" parts, as said, later. 

In this post, I already want to express my thankfulness for all who contributed to VPHA - to my recollection this is over 70 people from over 20 countries. Thank you: We can say that we made history. I am also grateful for Tuomo Suntola, on whose support I have always been able to count. 

Related Twitter thread (or, is it X now...): https://twitter.com/rlpuu/status/1685130336366161920?s=20 

In Espoo, Finland, 29.7.2023
Riikka Puurunen

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

ALD Russia 2021: VPHA presentation

On October 27-30, 2021, the ALD Russia 2021 workshop was organized (http://technolog.edu.ru/aldrussia/.html, chairperson: Prof. Anatolii Malygin). 

This was the third time that an event in this series was organized. The blog author (Puurunen) had the honor of attending the first event in Moscow 2015. From there, travel notes were published in the BALD Engineering blog here, and in and updated form (e.g. photos added) in the in-the-meantime-created ALD History Blog here.  

This time, the event was organized in a light hybrid way, enabling the giving and following of presentations via Zoom. This approach enabled some international guests to participate despite the Covid-19 pandemic. Among such visitors, was the author of this blog. Interestingly, many presentations have their slides shared on the website, see http://technolog.edu.ru/aldrussia/programme-en.html.

As one of the Zoom-based talks, there was a presentation related to the Virtual Project on the History of ALD (VPHA):

• R. L. Puurunen, Yu. Koshtyal, J. Sundqvist, J. R. van Ommen, O. Yurkevich, Virtual Project on the History of ALD in perspective: past, present, and final steps (slides, video, abstract).

In the presentation, the message was shared that the core activity of VPHA, reading and writing short comments on early ALD works to share, will be activated again. Preliminarily planned timing is to start in November 2021. Everyone with interest in ALD and its history is welcome to join - contact info @ vph-ald.com if you wish to join as a new contributor. More info to come!  

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

ECS meeting invited ALD history talk: slides and proceedings

In October 2018, I had the honor to give an invited talk at the Electrochemical Society (ECS) fall meeting, organized in Cancun, Mexico (AiMES2018). ECS has had an ALD session since early 2000s. For me, this was the first time to attend the event: I got a very nice impression of the ALD session specifically and on this massive meeting in general.

The talk was called "Learnings from an Open Science Effort: Virtual Project on the History of ALD". Abstract is as follows:

"This work summarizes learnings from an Open Science effort “Virtual project on the History of ALD” (VPHA), started in 2013 to clarify the early history of atomic layer deposition (ALD). ALD is a multi-tool of nanotechnology and has been e.g. enabler of the continuation of Moore’s law of transistor scaling. ALD has been developed historically through two independent routes: atomic layer epitaxy (ALE) and molecular layering (ML). Especially the details on ML have remained little known to a broader audience. In this contribution, learnings in VPHA are seen from the viewpoint of its voluntary coordinator (the author self) related to historical details of ALD as well as from an organizational viewpoint and some other viewpoints. Selected details related to ALD’s history not fully accurately described in three earlier review articles are pointed out. The work made in VPHA has resulted in journal articles, presentations and an exhibition, and VPHA has in part provided the foundation for granting the 2018 Millennium Technology Prize to Dr. Tuomo Suntola. At the time of writing this contribution, in July 2018, VPHA is still on-going, and more volunteers are welcome to join the effort."

The slides are available through ECSarXiv: https://ecsarxiv.org/u6vw7/ (DOI: 10.1149/osf.io/u6vw7).

The question that started the Virtual Project on the History of ALD

I noticed that the discussion chain, which initiated the Virtual Project on the History of ALD, is still accessible in LinkedIn. Here, I copy the first post, which was a question by myself. Markedly, there in total 26 items of discussion at the moment (and one "like"). To my knowledge, the post was written on May 6, 2013. Screen capture of the post, full copy of the text below. (I was not a professor at Aalto University then, but a senior researcher at VTT.) Link to the discussion chain, which is still open: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/1885076/1885076-238399494.

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. 

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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

Where were you when I asked that question?

This post continues on an earlier post describing the ALD history activities before VPHA.

Triggered by events in the Netherlands, Finland and latest Latvia and the way that the history of ALD has been presented in them, I am finally writing a post which has been forming in the back of my mind for several months.

During the years, it has happened to me repeatedly that people start telling me their exact location "when you asked that question". They always refer to the ALD 2004 conference, "A joint American Vacuum Society ALD and Baltic ALD conference Celebrating 30 years of ALD", Helsinki, Finland, August 16-18, 2014. The conference pages were until quite recently still available at the address http://www.helsinki.fi/ALD2004/; now they seem to have disappeared. It should still be possible to obtain the abstract book here.

As the title says, the conference was celebrating thirty years from the invention of ALD in Finland in 2004. Dr. Tuomo Suntola was deservedly one of the invited speakers. His presentation is still available through his webpage, a link can be found also in the VPHA list of ALD history publications.

When the conference preparations started, I was a postdoctoral fellow at IMEC, Belgium. I of course wanted to participate in the conference, now that this big international event would arrive in Finland. I submitted several abstracts of my works (and got one talk + posters).

At IMEC, I had started to look into the history of ALD, as described in detail earlier here. I was well aware that ALD has not only been invented in Finland but also in USSR, and that the USSR work pre-dates that made in Finland. Seeing the title of the conference, "Celebrating 30 years of ALD", I was not quite sure what to think of it. My feeling was that I cannot be the only one who knows that this title is not correct. Don't they know, or don't they want to know?

Copy of earlier communication to earlier ALD history review authors

A few days ago, copies of two emails were published in the ALD History Blog, which have been recently sent to the authors of the 2013 ALD history review to update them regarding the latest progress in VPHA. That the post has been re-tweeted in Twitter tells that the material has been of interest to someone. Link to post: http://aldhistory.blogspot.fi/2017/02/copies-of-communications-to-earlier-ald.html

For completeness of info, in this post, an email is published from October 2013, where the authors of the then-new 2013 ALD history review were originally informed of and invited to participate in the then-recently started Virtual Project on the History of ALD.  

From: Puurunen Riikka
Sent: 8. lokakuuta 2013 10:31
To: <10 authors> 

Cc: Puurunen Riikka; Aziz Abdulagatov; Jonas Sundqvist; ALD Pulse

Subject: Virtual project on the history of ALD: introduction and invitation to participate

Dear authors of the recent ALD review, JVSTA 31 (2013) 050818, 

Virtual project on the history of ALD: Introduction and invitation to participate.

Did you know that the first publication of TiO2 thin films from TiCl4 and H2O by ALD on planar silicon substrates dates from year 1970? That Prof. Aleskovskii envisioned ALD as a "route to further miniaturization of microelectronic devices and to molecular electronics" in 1974? That a research group in St Petersburg has been active on ALD all the time since 1960's? These and many other things have already surfaced during the "virtual project on the history of ALD", an open worldwide collaborative effort to clarify the early history of ALD. Your participation in the “virtual project” would be very welcome and your expertise in the field of ALD highly useful for putting the new knowledge properly into place in today's perspective.

Early ALD publications with two VPHA comments

Previous post reported early ALD publications with one VPHA comment in ALD-history-evolving-file, according to info collected in the VPHA-reading-overview-file. This post lists the publications which have two comments, and still would preferably need one comment.

There are 71 publications currently with two comments. Most of the publications are in Russian, while some works remain in German, English, and Finnish, too.

Early ALD publications with one VPHA comment

Previous post reported early ALD publications with no VPHA comments yet in ALD-history-evolving-file, according to info collected in the VPHA-reading-overview-file. This post lists the publications which have one comment, and still would preferably need two comments.

There are 103 of publications with just one comment. Over 90% of the publications are in Russian. The list contains also some items in Bulgarian, English, Finnish, German, and Japanese.  

Early ALD publications with no VPHA comments yet

The VPHA reading & commenting in ALD-history-evolving-file has progressed so that the work is 76% done, according to the info collected in the VPHA-reading-overview-file.

There are still five publications without any comments and they are listed in the following table. Two are in Russian and one in Bulgarian. Regarding two, were we have not been able to confirm the reference info from a copy.

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.

VPHA Baltic ALD 2016 presentation: live record in Youtube

Live record of the invited organizational end presentation of Virtual Project on the History of ALD (VPHA) at the 14th International Baltic Conference on Atomic Layer Deposition "Baltic ALD 2016" in St. Petersburg, October 3, 2016, has now been uploaded in Youtube. The presentation is entitled "On the history of ALD and the VPHA project," has six co-authors and was delivered by the voluntary coordinator of VPHA, Dr. Riikka Puurunen from VTT, Finland.

Screen capture from Youtube video https://youtu.be/DIArUktQ8xs by Riikka Puurunen. 

Related links:

VPHA communication: 3rd commenting round to start / DL Sept 23

The email below was sent to 71 current and 35 prospective VPHA co-authors. 

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Dear VPHA co-authors and prospective co-authors,

The VPHA reading is now 68% completed. To get closer to 100%, we have been preparing for a third round of reading. We are finished with selecting papers to read, and distribution of papers will soon start.

As earlier, our goal is to have each early ALD publication red and commented upon by minimum three people. Commenting is done in the ALD-history-evolving-file and bookkeeping in VPHA-reading-overview-file. The number of papers chosen per person varies and is in maximum five. You can view in VPHA-author-info-update file (2^nd tab, “reading-distribution3”), which files have been selected for you.

ALD thesis list contains 297 entries - which ones are missing?

During the last months, we have in VPHA been collecting a list of ALD theses made worldwide. At ALD 2016, I discussed with many professors and researchers, who agreed to check the theses list what comes to their own labs/universities. To make it easy to spot the missing ones, the number of PhD-equivalent theses per country is collected in the table below, and the thesis list (including also "professor's theses") is shown below, ordered per country.

In March 2016 (post here), there were 274 PhD-equivalent theses listed; now, there are 297. How many would we be missing still? I believe that there are theses missing still at least from USA (the George group, @GeorgeGroupCU), Belgium (IMEC/KU Leuven) and Japan, and probably from other countries/universities, too. The full thesis info can be seen in the VPHA-ALD-thesis-list. When you spot missing info, you can write the additions directly in the file VPHA-thesis-to-be-added.

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.

Early ALD publications with one VPHA comment

Continuing on the post of yesterday, listing early ALD publications with so far no comments in VPHA's ALD-history-evolving-file, here is the list of publications (up to 1986) with just one comment. Many publications in Russian, some in German, English, Bulgarian and Finnish. 

Of course, a question is: have we listed all publications up to 1986? We can never be completely sure; the list is as complete as the co-authors make it. Participants of ALD 2016 and other experts: you are most welcome to join the ALD history reading to help us perfect and complete the work! To join, please contact us at the conference or email info@ vph-ald.com. 

Evolution of the VPHA reading up to July 22, 2016 (total completion status 67%). April-June 2016 saw rapid increase in # comments given due to active coordination. 

Early ALD publications with zero comments - VPHA welcomes more volunteers

The ALD History Project VPHA has progressed well during the first half of 2016, see e.g. the poster to be presented at ALD 2016 Ireland next week. The work is not competed yet, however: e.g., we have 16 early ALD publications which have no "VPHA comments" yet and the overall reading progress status is 67%.  

The table below shows all 16 publications listed in ALD-history-evolving-file with zero comments. The list includes publications in Bulgarian, English, German, Japanese, and Russian. The list clearly contains some historically important paper, for example:

• publication by Pakkanen and Lindblad (in English), likely to be the very first density functional theory approach for ALD chemistry; and 
• publication by Jun-ichi Nishizawa (in Japanese), likely to be the very first ALD/ALE paper from Japan. 

We will organize one more reading-distribution round in VPHA, to get the early ALD publications (up to 1986) read and commented. Target is that all publications should be commented by three people; one comment per publication is the absolute minimum. After the completion of the reading, we plan to re-open the voting to refine the recommended reading list, the first version of which is published in the ALD 2016 poster (voting will be re-opened open maximum for some weeks). More volunteers are still welcome to join the ALD history reading&voting, to help us complete the work. If you'd like to volunteer, please contact us e.g. through emailing info@ vph-ald.com. 

At ALD 2016 Ireland, there will be many VPHA volunteers around. The final VPHA poster co-author and affiliation list can be found at the end of this post. The co-author lists includes e.g. the conference chairs, several invited speakers, and some leading professors.

VPHA ALD 2016 poster ready & next steps

The message below was sent on July 19 to all VPHA co-authors (70) and listed prospective co-authors (31). VPHA's poster at ALD 2016 poster can be found here. VPHA will have still one reading & commenting round and welcomes more participants.  

--- 

From: Puurunen Riikka
Sent: 19. heinäkuuta 2016 10:23
Subject: VPHA ALD 2016 poster ready & next steps

Dear VPHA co-authors and prospective co-authors,

VPHA poster to the ALD 2016 conference is now finalized. You can find a copy of it in the vph-ald.com website: http://vph-ald.com/VPHApublications/VPHA-poster_July2016_FINAL_2016-07-19.pdf. The main content and novelty of the poster is the recommended reading list of early ALD publications, which came out from the VPHA voting made in May-June.

Snapshot of VPHA reading progress - 62% completed

The latest weeks has showed nice increase in the reading progress of Virtual Project on the History of ALD (VPHA). At the moment, 62% of the target reading & commenting is done. In total 66 persons from 18 countries in three continents have participated in the work. More volunteers are still welcome as there is still work to do (38%). For example, there are 29 publications listed without any comments yet.

Hopefully we will get further growth in the comments in the next days, as we have wished to get comments by June 8 for the 2nd round of papers distributed for reading. This will give everyone a week of time to think of their vote for the conclusive recommended reading list of early ALD publications for VPHA's poster presentation at ALD 2016.

Please see below a visual snapshot of the reading progress of VPHA as of June 6, 2016.  Previous similar snapshot was made on May 14th. Comparison of the graphs shows nicely how progress is taking place---thank you to all volunteers who make this happen!

New wikipedia page: V. B. Aleskovskii

A new Wikipedia page has been created for one of the major names of atomic layer deposition (ALD): Valentin Borisovich Aleskovskii. View the page here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentin_Aleskovsky

The page was initiated on June 4 by Angel Yanguas-Gil (view history here) - thank you very much for creating this, Angel! I (Riikka) made next minor edits on the basis of the info from the Molecular Layering essay (DOI: 10.1002/cvde.201402012) by Malygin et al.

Then, something happened which I would call a "Wikipedia miracle". In a day, the article transformed to have much more contents and division into sections, as some to-me-unknown Wikipedia-volunteer from outside the Virtual Project on the History of ALD (VPHA) took action and made major edits, improving the contents of the article and adding links to existing information. The page is still in its early days, and it is interesting to follow, how it will evolve in the future.

In my view, this "Wikipedia miracle", which I have just witnessed to occur, is what Wikipedia is about at its best. Wikipedia is an open encyclopedia. Everyone can create pages and edit contents. With group wisdom, the information evolves and improves. In the Wikipedia workshop of a recent seminar ("Liikutu tiedosta") on Science Communication, research results were presented which concluded the reliability of Wikipedia articles to be on average to a level similar to Encyclopedia Britannica. Year 2016 is the Year of Science in Wikipedia. It would be great, if this year would also motivate ALD scientists to improve the contents of the general ALD page would also be edited to be on the general high level of Wikipedia. For those considering editing, the Five Pillars quickly explain the principles how Wikipedia works:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Five_pillars.

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