List of ALD reviews now as Open File in vph-ald.com

Related to the ALD History Review (Item #10 in the VPHA Publication Plan), we are in VPHA collecting a list of ALD reviews published all times. I started collecting the review list as a separate page in the ALD History Blog, initially combining there the "reviews of reviews" from my two ALD reviews in 2005 and 2013. The list was then updated with info that people sent. For more efficient co-editing and analysis---taking model from the ALD thesis list update system---the list is now being updated as a Google Spreadsheet called VPHA-ALD-reviews, which everyone can view and comment on in real time. Warmest thanks for Oksana Yurkevich for making the transition from the blog to the spreadsheet and improving the information along the way.


At the moment, the list contains  177 review articles/book chapters/books. Very likely, many items are still missing, and everyone's help is appreciated in creating a full list. When you notice missing items, please write their information directly in the file called VPHA-reviews-to-be-added. Info collected:

ALD thesis list has 226 entries - Many still missing?

VPHA-ALD-thesis-list has been growing, at the moment it contains 226 PhD-equivalent entries. The image below shows how these theses are distributed per country. The previous post on the topic on Feb 12 listed 187 PhD-equivalent theses, so almost forty have been added since then, especially from Estonia, Poland, Sweden, and the Netherlands. Thank you for everyone who has provided information! 

At the end of the post, there is a list of theses sorted per country, to easily spot which ones are missing from your country. ("Professor's theses", not counted in PhD-equivalents, are included in this list.) I am sure that many theses are still missing at least from Germany, Japan, Norway, Korea, UK, and USA, and probably from some other countries, too. Please help us complete the list of theses and add missing items directly here. 

As mentioned earlier, the list will be used in the VPHA ALD History Review article, #10 in the VPHA Publication Plan.

ALD terminology discussion: Ligand exchange reaction

Since when is term "ligand exchange reaction" used in the ALD literature? How has it been defined? How about "exchange reaction" - is it used interchangeably with ligand exchange reaction, or do they have different meanings? A discussion thread to find answers to these questions was just started in the ALD - Atomic Layer Deposition LinkedIn group, link to thread: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/1885076/1885076-6108533900315803648. Comments appreciated!

Thanks to Simon Elliott for proposing ligand exchange reaction in the list of ALD terminology to be discussed. 

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

Open research: How sharing can help researchers succeed

The Virtual Project on the History (VPHA) of ALD is all about open research, open access, worldwide collaboration and daring to share even unfinished work. We develop new ways of working and learn from our mistakes. Sometimes, we have found very good new practices, the collaborative updating of the ALD thesis list being perhaps the best example (see previous post).

In addition to learning from one's own trials and errors, it is of course interesting to learn from the experience of one's peers. In Finland, the NMR Lipids project shares a lot of characteristics with VPHA. Through Twitter, I have learnt of many other open science projects. At this very moment, a manuscript entitled "The open research value proposition: How sharing can help researchers succeed" is being prepared in the internet by Erin C. McKiernan and co-workers.

VPHA listed as a Collaboration in european-ald.net

Today, Virtual Project on the History of ALD was created as a Collaboration on the website of the COST Action MP1402 - HERALD, "Hooking together European Research in Atomic Layer Deposition", european-ald.net.

To get started, people who are involved in VPHA and who already have profiles on the HERALD website were listed (rather randomly) at the Collaboration. Later, a more thorough edit for co-authors can be made, after the abstract to Ireland ALD 2016 has been sent (at the moment, the abstract has 50 co-authors from 15 countries). I am not very familiar with the european-ald.net website, but I do think that people can add these collaborations to their profiles already.

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

ALD thesis list grows, now 187 - which are missing?

The list of PhD theses on ALD is growing. In the figure you see the current number of theses listed per country. At the moment, the total number is 187. The previous post, Feb 3, listed 159, so the number has been nicely growing.

Although the list is already sizeable, most likely tens of theses are still missing, at least from Germany, Japan, Norway, Poland, Korea, Turkey, and UK, and probably from many other countries. Everyone's help is appreciated for building a list that is as complete as possible. Please check the theses from your country, and if you note that your/you colleague's thesis is missing, please add the info directly in this file (it is a Google docs file called VPHA-thesis-to-be-added, you can find a link to the file through the page http://vph-ald.com/VPHAopenfiles.html). To make it easier to find missing items per country, the current list has been sorted per country and is shown below in a shortened form: year - author - university - city - country. (The below list includes also the "professor's theses", which are not counted in the number of PhD-equivalents.)

VPHA status update 2016-02-12

The status update below was sent to 49 co-authors and 32 prospective co-authors.

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Dear VPHA co-authors and prospective co-authors,

In this VPHA status update, you find information on the following items:

1. VPHA abstract to ALD 2016 conference (new DL: Feb 17)
2. ALD thesis list - 183 entries, and many missing
3. Wikimedia Commons ALD collection
4. Wikipedia updates #WikiALD
5. VPHA in numbers
6. Other ALD History Blog posts

VPHA abstract to ALD 2016 Ireland - DL postponed to Feb 17

The Ireland ALD 2016 conference has postponed its abstract submission deadline by a week to February 21 (was: February 14). Consequently, we can also postpone the deadline of joining the VPHA abstract to ALD 2016 (Item #9 in the VPHA Publication Plan).



The abstract has currently 49 co-authors from 14 countries. With the postponed deadline, new people can join as co-authors until February 17, 2016. Condition for joining as a co-author is to leave at least one comment in the ALD-history-evolving-file (find link also through http://vph-ald.com/VPHAopenfiles.html) by the given deadline.

Older related post: http://aldhistory.blogspot.fi/2016/01/vpha-abstract-to-ald-2016-ireland-dl.html

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

2015: a turning point in understanding the history of ALD

Recently, I concluded to a colleague that I think that year 2015 was a turning point in understanding the history of ALD. Maybe it is worth saying publicly in the ALD History Blog, why I think this is the case.

We started the Virtual Project on the History of ALD in 2013. In 2014, we made the FinALD40 exhibition, and there were VPHA presentations at Baltic ALD in Helsinki and the ALD 2014 conference in Kyoto, and I published the Suntola ALE essay. Why then do I think that 2015 was a turning point? There are two main reasons.

1. The International ALD Russia workshop was organized. This workshop brought together original developers of Molecular Layering, other ALD scientists from Russia, and people from the international ALD community, with participants from USA, Finland, The Netherlands, Belgium, Korea, and many more countries. VPHA was not directly involved in this organization; however, I am sure that VPHA had made the time ripe for this event to happen and to be so fruitful. (When I asked the question after Suntola's invited talk at the ALD 2004 conference in Helsinki, time was not yet ripe.) Travel report from the ALD Russia workshop here. 
2. The Molecular Layering - ALD history essay by Malygin et al. was published. This essay is historical, even revolutionary in the way how it describes the massiveness of the Molecular Layering works, which have remained unknown to so many scientist---for reasons which I do not fully understand. If only this essay had the Open Access status, so that everyone could access the information freely! If there are people/organizations who would like to sponsor the Open Access payment for this essay, maybe the status can still be changed.

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.

ALD thesis list is growing - which are missing?

An earlier post announced that in VPHA we are building a worldwide list of doctoral theses on ALD. The collection is made in a file called VPHA-ALD-thesis-list. We are also collecting links to the electronic thesis documents (when available), which makes the list especially valuable. Currently, the list contains 159 items from different countries. Twenty five (25) theses have already been added since the previous post on January 19. The detailed situation is shown per country in the histogram below.

My feeling is that tens of theses would be missing still. Estonia? Germany? Sweden? USA? ... It would be greatly appreciated if VPHA participants and other ALD scientists around the world would check the list and add missing items. To have a thesis added, please write the thesis info directly in the VPHA-thesis-to-be-added file; we will periodically check this and move added items to the full list. You find a link to it in the VPHA-ALD-thesis-list and also through the webpage http://vph-ald.com/VPHAopenfiles.html.

ALD terminology discussion: Half reaction

"Half reaction" is a term that is to a growing extent being used in the ALD literature. It is used elsewhere, too, mainly to describe the oxidation or reduction components of a redox (reduction-oxidation) reaction for example in electrochemistry (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-reaction). When has term "half reaction" been introduced in the ALD literature, by whom, and why? A discussion thread to find answers to these question was just started in LinkedIn ALD - Atomic Layer Deposition group, link to thread: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/1885076/1885076-6100552712707985409. Comments appreciated!