Story of the image: Reconstruction of the first Atomic Layer Epitaxy experiment

On December 6th, 2018, I have made a small donation to the world. I uploaded the image, which shows a reconstruction of the first Atomic Layer Epitaxy experiment (nowadays Atomic Layer Deposition) in Wikimedia Commons. (I also created a new gallery, Tuomo Suntola.)

The image is shared in Wikimedia Commons with the Creative Commons Attribute-Share Alike license (CC BY SA 4.0). This means that anyone in the world is free to use the image, also in commercial works, without the need to ask for further permission. The licence requires that one acknowledges the source (BY) and if edits are made, they are shared with a similar licence (SA). Ok ways in my view to acknowledge the source are: 

1. Noting the authors & licence: Riikka Puurunen & Tuomo Suntola 2014 (CC BY-SA 4.0) 
2. linking to the Wikimedia page https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Reconstruction_of_the_first_atomic_layer_epitaxy_experiment_by_Tuomo_Suntola.jpg. 

This image is quite special in my view and it was quite an effort to make it, so I am happy it is now shared for anyone's further use. (If someone is interested, I can tell another time, how it was made.) Had the image been used in the way it was first intended, it would not have been possible to share it in Wikimedia Commons. Luckily, things don't always go as planned. 

Here, I want to tell the story of this Suntola image, as an example to perhaps learn from.

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.

ALD history and prof. emeritus Markus Pessa (updated)

TEK-lehti wrote on Jan 30, 2017 an excellent article about the Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC) at Tampere University of Technology (TUT), mentioning the very special Finnish researcher and inventor, prof. emeritus Markus Pessa who is also the founder and former leader of ORC. Pessa has also influenced the understanding of the history of atomic layer deposition (ALD) within the Virtual Project on the History of ALD (VPHA). The TEK-lehti article inspired me to write in the ALD History Blog also of Pessa's influence.

Many ALD researchers will recognise M. Pessa from early ALD publications. The first scientific article published in Finland on ALD in 1980 (Ahonen et al.) is co-authored by Pessa, and so is the review article in Journal of Applied Physics in 1986, which has been chosen to define the end year of VPHA. Both articles were featured and described in the recommended reading list of early ALD publications in the VPHA JVSTA focused review, http://dx.doi.org/10.1116/1.4971389 (open access).

Pessa has been further related to two puzzling questions which I have encountered during VPHA.  I believe that both questions have received decent answers.

1. When I started to work at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland in 2004, I soon learned from a colleague who had worked at TUT that there is (/was?) an old ALD reactor displayed labelled as "the world's first ALE reactor". When I first heard this, I admit that I was very surprised. How could this be true? ALE was invented in Espoo by Suntola, after all.    
2. I have - of course - been curious of when the Finnish and Soviet ALD scientists first met. When during the past few years I presented the question to several long-term scientists in Finland who were active already in 1990, I got always basically the same answer: the first meeting was at the ALE-1 conference in 1990 in Helsinki, where these researchers "just appeared". How come they "just appeared" there?!? How did they find their way to the conference?  

Copy of the cover of book of programme and abstracts, ALE-1 conference, Espoo/Helsinki, Finland, June 13-15, 1990. 

New affiliation, a personal note

Through this personal note in ALD History Blog, I would like to inform the VPHA participants as well as other people of a career change which I am currently going through.

February 1st, I started as associate professor (tenure track), Catalysis Science and Technology at Aalto University. My just-created description in the Aalto people pages describes the current status and the near-future plans (as of Feb 5, 2017):  

Associate professor (tenure track), Catalysis Science and Technology. Strong background and continued interest in Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD); aiming to build research e.g. with microreactors and in situ/operando measurements. "Work-hobby:" history of ALD; interested in open science approaches. Feb-Jul 2017 working 60% at Aalto University and 40% at VTT Technical Reseach Centre of Finland; from Aug 2017 on, full time at Aalto University. Open for new (and old!) collaborations. 

For the next half year, I will work part time (60%, typically Wed-Fri) at Aalto University and part time (40%, typically Mon-Tue) at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland. The remaining work at VTT concentrates on the lateral high-aspect-ratio test structures (LHAR/PillarHall) in a "TUTL" project financed by Tekes.

As an Aalto University professor, I will continue to coordinate the Virtual Project on the History of ALD (VPHA) as before.

Espoo, February 5, 2017
Riikka Puurunen

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

Nov 29, 2016: new webpage pillarhall.com

November 29 is the date when the first patent on Atomic Layer Epitaxy, currently known as Atomic Layer Deposition, was filed in 1974.

Forty years after filing the first patent, on the same day in 2014, the Finnish Centre of Excellence in Atomic Layer Deposition (ALDCoE) released the FinALD40 exhibition material. The material is still accessible through the aldcoe.fi and vph-ald.com websites.

Two years later, again on the same day, VTT launched a new website: http://pillarhall.com. This website is related to the microscopic lateral high-aspect-ratio (LHAR) thin film conformality test structure developed at VTT, also known as "PillarHall" (protected trademark). The original ideas that have resulted in the PillarHall test structures have been created by VTT'ers in the ALDCoE project funded by the Academy of Finland and has already resulted in two scientific publications (details in pillarhall.com). The research and development work continues with the University of Helsinki ALD group and many other groups worldwide, as well as in a dedicated "TUTL" project funded by Tekes - the Finnish Funding Agency for Innovation.

"What you can't measure, you can't improve". If you are interested in VTT's conformality test structures, please have a look and find the appropriate contact information at the website http://pillarhall.com.

Diced 150 mm silicon wafer with PillarHallTM conformality test chip prototypes. Photo: Riikka Puurunen, VTT, November 16, 2016.

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

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:

Snapshot of ALD research in Finland - presentations at ALD 2016

The next major international event in the field of atomic layer deposition (ALD) will be the ALD 2016 conference in Ireland in July 2016. To this post, I have collected information on oral presentations from Finland from the conference programme page recently released.

In total, there will be 16 oral presentations from six affiliations in Finland: Aalto University (3), ASM (1), Beneq (1), University of Helsinki (5), University of Jyväskylä (1), and VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland (5). Additionally, there will of course be many poster presentations, including the VPHA poster. Oral presentation titles and times are copied below. 

I think that the titles nicely illustrate the multitude of ALD research being made on ALD in Finland, four decades after the first experiments were made by Suntola and co-workers to make ALD (then ALE, Atomic Layer Epitaxy) based thin-film electroluminescent displays (link). 

Those who have interest in ALD in Finland are all welcome to join the Finland ALD group in LinkedIn, where Finland ALD -related news are shared. There are currently 237 members, most of them from Finland and some from abroad. 

Thoughts on Open Access, VPHA and figshare

A publication is meant to be public. Many are not, as the journals limit the access to the subscribers of the journals --- the content is published, but not publicly available.

Mid-February, I blogged about "Open research: How sharing can help researchers succeed", linking to an excellent manuscript-in-progress by McKiernan et al. that considers open research aspects from a researcher-centric approach. The manuscript triggered my thinking in many ways, I recommend reading it to others, too. In this blog post, I continue around Open Access and Open Science from my own ALD scientist's viewpoint and from the viewpoint of the VPHA ALD history project, ending with a question: Could we use figshare to share VPHA's material, other than journal articles? Are there other good options?  Discussion on the topic is very much needed and welcome.

Suntola's English Wikipedia page is updated

Tuomo Suntola must be one of the greatest Finnish scientists, inventors, industrialists of all times. I am happy to share that Tuomo Suntola's Wikipedia page in English has been updated related to VPHA Publication Plan Item #11 with the most important turns of Suntola's career. This his how in Wikipedia the page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuomo_Suntola, "Training and Career", reads at the moment:

"In 1971, Tuomo Suntola earned his PhD in semiconductor physics from the Helsinki University of Technology. After completing his PhD, Suntola made his first industrial development while working at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, a thin film humidity sensor “Humicap” for Vaisala Oy, a Finnish company specialized in meteorological instruments.

Nov 29: Story of a cover image, "Reconstruction of the first ALE experiment"

November 29, 2014, it was exactly 40 years since the filing of the first patent on Atomic Layer Epitaxy by Suntola and Antson (FIN 52359). To celebrate this, the Finnish Centre of Excellence on Atomic Layer Deposition (ALDCoE) released the material of the exhibition "40 Years of ALD in Finland - Photos, Stories" (FinALD40) in the internet. Originally, this exhibition had been created for the Baltic ALD 2014 conference in Helsinki, May 12-13, 2014.

Today, one year later, I want to tell you the story behind the cover image of the internet release of the the FinALD40 exhibition material. The cover image is called: "reconstruction of the first ALE experiment" and is shown in the next figure.

"Reconstruction of the first ALE experiment". © Riikka Puurunen 2014