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

ALD info in Japan sought

The previous post on the ACSI-conference series brings me back to Japan and ALD. The topic fits Wikipedia having an Asian month in November.)

My feeling is that we are still missing a lot of information of Japanese ALD works in VPHA. (This feeling is based on the information reported in the "ALE essay" and the VPHA manuscript in JVSTA, in press as of Nov 26, 2016.) For example: currently, we have in total 330 PhD-equivalent academic theses listed related to ALD worldwide (see VPHA-ALD-thesis-list). The picture below shows the distribution of theses per country. There are currently none listed from Japan, while I am sure there many academic theses that should be listed. How to get information on them?

The number of PhD-equivalent theses on ALD per country, as listed in VPHA-ALD-thesis-list as of November 26, 2016.

ACSI ALD conference info sought

Some weeks ago, being an opponent in a PhD thesis defence, I had the pleasure to visit professors Tuula and Tapani Pakkanen at the University of Eastern Finland. Many in VPHA may remember Tapani Pakkanen as the person who started quantum chemical calculations on ALD in the early 1980s.

Among other things, we discussed the VPHA ALD history activities. One thing that I learned from the Pakkanens is that in the early 1990s, an ALD conference has been organized in Joensuu, Finland, called ACSI-2. This conference was missing from the VPHA-ALD-conference-list and has since then been added. The full conference name was "Second International Symposium on Atomically Controlled Surfaces and Interfaces". Proceedings were published in Applied Surface Science 75 (1994) 1-363. As this was "ACSI-2", it is obvious that an "ACSI-1" and probably at least "ACSI-3" (and maybe more?) has been organized.

Tuomo Suntola and Riikka Puurunen at Micronova, Espoo, Finland, November 25, 2016. Photo by Mikko Utriainen. 

Yesterday, on November the 25th, Dr. Tuomo Suntola visited VTT Micronova (see the photo). Suntola confirmed that the ACSI conference series was organized around the topic of ALD---which was of course not called ALD at that time. Suntola told furthermore that the ACSI conferences were organized largely on the initiative of Prof. Jun-ichi Nishizawa from Japan (biographical article here), and that at least one of the conferences has been organized in Sendai, Japan.

ALDpulse.com announces to stop

According to announcement published by ALD Pulse in Facebook, 25.11.2016, aldpulse.com stops with ALD-activities and thereby becomes part of the colourful history of atomic layer deposition (ALD).

ALDpulse.com became active in Spring 2013. As seen from the screen capture, their vision was to become the Home of the ALD community and collect together varied information regarding ALD: ALD Basics, ALD Equipment suppliers, ALD Chemical suppliers, ALD Coating services, ALD-related equipment, and many other. A description of aldpulse.com was included in the FinALD40 exhibition material, accessible through aldcoe.fi website as well as vph-ald.com.

Screen capture from aldpulse.com on Nov 26, 2016.

The information in the ALD Hall Fame in part triggered the VPHA activities (described in VPHA's article, in press in JVSTA as of Nov 26, 2016). The founder of aldpulse.com Annina Titoff helped VPHA to get started by publishing the original "Introduction and invitation to participate" and several announcements thereafter.

I personally would like to thank aldpulse.com for its contribution to the ALD community. Their most memorable part from my viewpoint will be the original Youtube interviews produced by aldpulse, e.g. of Suntola, Sundqvist, Barry, Ahonen and Ritala. I very much hope that this material will stay in Youtube after aldpulse.com stops.

The best of luck wished for the ALD Pulse Team in their new endeavours!

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.

Travel notes: 63rd AVS symposium, Nashville

The AVS 63rd International Symposium and Exhibition was organized November 6-11, 2016, in Nashville, Tennessee, USA (symposium website: https://www.avs.org/symposium). I had the pleasure to attend the conference to present a scientific talk on the analysis of ALD/CVD process characteristics using VTT’s recently developed conformality test structures.

My name badge at AVS 63rd Symposium. "Press" stands for ALD History Blog.

This was my first time at an AVS Symposium. Earlier, I have published in the ALD History Blog travel notes from meetings such as ALD Russia 2015 Moscow, Baltic ALD 2015 Tartu, St. Petersburg visit November 2015, HERALD Helsinki meeting May 2016, ALD 2016 Dublin, and Baltic ALD 2016 St. Petersburg. The travel reports are written in the style of photojournalism, from the viewpoint of the on-going Virtual Project on the History of ALD (VPHA). As many of the VPHA volunteers are potential attendants of future AVS symposia, I wanted to write travel notes also from this event, although I did not expect much progress related to the ALD history activities. As it turned out, the event was also interesting from the point of view of the VPHA.

VPHA communication: JVSTA article accepted for publication

The email below was sent to 76 VPHA co-authors and 39 prospective co-authors.

From: Puurunen Riikka
Sent: 16. marraskuuta 2016 14:36
To: info@ vph-ald.com
Cc: Puurunen Riikka; Sundqvist Jonas
Subject: VPHA's JVSTA article accepted for publication

Dear VPHA co-authors and prospective co-authors,

It is my pleasure to inform you that our article “Recommended reading list of early publications on Atomic Layer Deposition-outcome of the Virtual Project on the History of ALD”, has been accepted for publication in Journal of Vacuum Science and Technology A (see the JVSTA’s editor-in-chief’s email below). The article was written expanding on the contents of VPHA’s poster at the ALD 2016 conference (travel report here). Attached is the final accepted version for everyone’s reference.

Cover letter JVSTA re-submission

The cover letter of the VPHA JVSTA manuscript re-submission (minor revision) was as follows.

--- copy of cover letter begins ---

Nashville, Tennessee, USA, November 9, 2016

Dear Editor of JVSTA,

Thank you for the referee comments and your decision “MINOR REVISION” (November 8, 2016) considering our manuscript <code removed> entitled  ”Recommended reading list of early publications on Atomic Layer Deposition—outcome of the Virtual Project on the History of ALD” by Ahvenniemi et al. (in total 62 co-authors).

Referee 1 finds the manuscript interesting and a step forward, agrees that the work should be published, and judges the quality of writing to be at a very high level (9/10). However, the referee finds the manuscript unsuitable for publication in JVSTA, because “the manuscript as written does not fulfil the expectations for a technical review article”. The referee makes many suggestions towards expanding the manuscript to a full technical review.

Referee 2 finds the manuscript novel (8/10), of the highest possible impact (10/10) and excellently written (10/10). Quoting the referee’s words: “The authors have a done a tremendous amount of work for this manuscript and I personally think the community will greatly appreciate that.” The referee suggest the publication basically as is, after the correction of a few minor typographical errors.

VPHA communication: JVSTA article with minor revision submitted 9.11.2016

The email below was sent to 76 VPHA contributors. (Email sent 9.11. Nashville time, while the time log shows the Finnish time and accordingly shows date as 10.11.)

From: Puurunen Riikka
Sent: 10. marraskuuta 2016 4:46
To: info@ vph-ald.com
Cc: Puurunen Riikka; Sundqvist Jonas
Subject: VPHA JVSTA article with minor revision submitted

Dear VPHA contributors,

We have yesterday received positive referee/editor comments regarding our manuscript “Recommended reading list of early publications on Atomic Layer Deposition-outcome of the Virtual Project on the History of ALD”. You can read the referee comments in full below.

The editor’s decision was that (very) minor revision is needed. The need for revision being so small, we have created and I have a moment ago submitted a revised version (revision: a few missing spaces added).

VPHA status update 2016-10-30

The email below was sent to 75 VPHA co-authors and 38 prospective co-authors. 

From: Puurunen Riikka
Sent: 30. lokakuuta 2016 17:26
To: info@ vph-ald.com
Cc: Puurunen Riikka; Sundqvist Jonas
Subject: VPHA status update 30.10.2016

Dear VPHA co-authors and prospective co-authors,

With this update, I would like to give an overview of the recent and future activities of the Virtual Project on the History of ALD (VPHA). The previous update was made on August 15, 2016, and this status update reviews the progress since then.  Read more below on the following topics:

• Status of VPHA JVSTA manuscript
• Organizational VPHA presentation at Baltic ALD 2016, St. Petersburg
• ALD-history-evolving-file: reading and commenting status
• New hashtags in Twitter related to ALD’s history
• ALD History Blog one year old
• ALD History Blog posts on other topics
• Next steps 

One year of ALD History Blog: statistics shared

Updated 28.10.2016
ALD History Blog was created on October 25, 2015 (it went public on Oct 28). I have shared statistics after 1 month, three months and half a year. This post completes the series and presents statistics after one year of the blog. A recent post was also written of the learnings related to having the blog. Here are some key numbers:

• In total 149 posts have been published before this post. Thus, there have been on average almost three posts per week. 
• The total number of views is above 16 100, giving about 44 views per day on average.   
• Most popular posts, 
• last 7 days: "Term "growth per cycle" (GPC) gaining wider use"
• last 30 days: "Baltic ALD 2016, St. Petersburg: travel notes by Puurunen"
• all times: "ALD 2016: Travel notes"
• Most pageviews, 
• last month: United States > Finland > Japan > France
• all times: United States > Finland > Russia > France
• Most important referring sites: LinkedIn, Twitter, Google 

Then, to the screen captures showing the statistics.  --- I am especially happy of the attention from Japan in the last months. This is because we are still perfecting VPHA's list of early ALD publications up to 1986, and I suspect that we are missing several Japanese publications by Jun-ichi Nishizawa and collaborators. We would need Japanese volunteer(s) in VPHA to get all those works included in the worldwide lists. Those interested to participate in VPHA can contact info@ vph-ald.com (delete the space).

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:

New Twitter hashtag: #ALDepQuote

After creating the hashtag #suntolaquote, it soon occurred to me that a general ALD-related hashtag for memorable words of all people and all times could be useful, too. Namely, during the VPHA ALD history project, I have heard from many people around the world things worth remembering, and other people will have encountered other memorable things.

To collect together famous (-to-be) ALD-related words, I yesteday created a new hashtag, #ALDepquote - feel free to join and use in Twitter.  

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

New Twitter hashtag: #suntolaquote

Dr. Tuomo Suntola, the Finnish inventor of atomic layer deposition (ALD), has said many things worthwhile to remember.

About a year ago, I wrote how scientific aphorisms are collected in Finland. Now, I realized that Twitter is an excellent place to remember and spread powerful words by powerful persons. Even better: they can easily be collected together by a common hashtag. Feel free to join and share in Twitter words to remember by Suntola, using the just-created hashtag: #suntolaquote.  

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

Term "growth per cycle" (GPC) gaining wider use

"Growth per cycle (GPC)" (unit e.g., nm) and "growth rate" (unit e.g., nm/cyc) have been described as alternative names to denote the time-independent amount of material deposited in a completed atomic layer deposition (ALD) cycle. The recent Baltic ALD 2016 conference confirmed the trend which I have noticed already earlier: the ALD community more and more shifts to use GPC.

I have been advocating the use of GPC since the early 2000s. A bit of history may be in place to explain why I chose to use GPC in the first place---how did it all get started? In the following, I will tell how one specific person has played a major role in the background.

VPHA communication: Baltic ALD 2016 presentation & travel report

The email below was sent to 73 VPHA co-authors and 38 prospective co-authors.  

From: Puurunen Riikka
Sent: 9. lokakuuta 2016 12:03
To: info@ vph-ald.com <space added>
Cc: Puurunen Riikka; Sundqvist Jonas
Subject: VPHA: Baltic ALD 2016 presentation & travel report

Dear VPHA co-authors and prospective co-authors,

Last week, the 14th International Baltic Conference on Atomic Layer Deposition was organized in St. Petersburg, Russia (http://www.bald2016.ru/). Similarly as for some earlier ALD conferences, I wrote a travel report from the conference: http://aldhistory.blogspot.fi/2016/10/balticald2016-stpetersburg-travel-notes-puurunen.html. The earlier travel reports (and this one, too) you find from this link.   

I had the honour to give the first invited talk of the Baltic ALD 2016 conference. This is - of course - thanks to the Virtual Project on the History of ALD (VPHA), which we have been collectively working on since July 2013. Link to the VPHA presentation slides: http://vph-ald.com/VPHApublications/VPHA-Puurunen-etal_FINAL_2016-10-03.pdf. Additionally, I had a presentation about conformality investigations of ALD thin films with recently-developed microscopic lateral high-aspect-ratio (LHAR) test structures (more info here and here).

Baltic ALD 2016, St. Petersburg: travel notes by Puurunen

Updated October 9, 2016

The 14th International Baltic Conference on Atomic Layer Deposition (Baltic ALD 2016, http://www.bald2016.ru/) was organized in St. Petersburg, Russia, on October 3-4, 2016.

The conference consisted of one day of invited lectures and one day of contributed talks and posters. The conference venue was Solo Sokos Hotel Palace Bridge (V.o. Birzhevoi Pereulok 2-4, St. Petersburg, 199004) on the Vasilievsky Island. A get-together event was organized on October 2, 2016. The conference chairman was Prof. Vladimir Kutuzov, the rector of St. Petersburg Electrotechnical University"LETI" and the chairman of the International Advisory Board was Prof. Markku Leskelä from the University of Helsinki. Central local organizers were Prof. Nikolay Egorov and Prof. Alexey Ivanov from LETI. Roughly forty persons participated at the conference. I (Riikka Puurunen) had the pleasure to participate at BALD 2016 both as an invited speaker and as a regular contributor. This was the third time that I participated at a Baltic ALD conference; earlier, I have attended the Baltic ALD of 2014 in Helsinki and of 2015 in Tartu (travel report).