VPHA voting open DL Jun 15 - "conclusive reading list of early ALD publications"

Voting is now open to determine the conclusive recommended reading list of early ALD publications, as promised in the abstract of poster presentation of the Virtual Project on the History of ALD (VPHA) at the ALD 2016 Ireland conference.

• All VPHA co-authors can vote (there are now 64 co-authors)
• Everyone is welcome to become a VPHA co-author 

Voting will be made openly with one's own name and is open until June 15th. The organization is made with files that are openly available all the time:

• VPHA-voting-file 
• VPHA-voting-instructions
• VPHA-voting-ENTRY-file (everyone can edit)

More on the topic in the previous VPHA status update. Links to the three files can be found here http://vph-ald.com/VPHAopenfiles.html. Happy voting & see you in Ireland!

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

Photos from HERALD WG2 / ALDCoE Helsinki workshop

We had a very fine HERALD/ALDCoE workshop in Helsinki early this week. About ninety people were present from four continents. Excellent invited talks were delivered e.g. by:

• Prof. Marc Heyns, IMEC, Belgium, 
• Dr. Simon Rushworth, EpiValence, UK
• Dr. Paul Williams, Pegasus Chemicals, UK
• Dr. David C. Smith, LAM Research, USA 
• Prof. Christophe Detavernier, Ghent University, Belgium
• Prof. Anjana Devi, Ruhr University Bochum, Germany
• Prof. Jaan Aarik,  University of Tartu, Estonia
• Prof. Erwin Kessels, Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands

Thank you for all invited speakers and participants, as well as the organizers, especially Prof Markku Leskelä, the head of ALDCoE and the chairman of this event, and Dr. Ville Miikkulainen, who is the coordinator or ALDCoE and who was the main practical organizer of the event.

Riikka Puurunen pitching the VPHA organizational poster. Photo by Oili Ylivaara (Twitter via @rlpuu)

Some photos from the event are collected below, published in Twitter by Riikka Puurunen (@rlpuu), Oili Ylivaara (@ltoili), Pegasus Chemicals (@PegasusChemical) and in LinkedIn by Simon Rushworth. A collection of earlier VPHA-related travel reports published in the ALD History Blog can be found here.

New entry {Sayzev1981} in the VPHA overview files

It happened (and it may well happen in the future) that the ALD-history-evolving-file contained an entry which was not included in the VPHA overview files. The entry is:

{Sayzev1981} ger

Katalytische Eigenschaften von Vanadiumoxide-Chromoxid-Aufschicht-Katalysatoren. Untersuchungen an katalytisch aktiven Oberflächenverbindungen.

I have added today this entry today in:

• VPHA-reading-overview-file
• VPHA-voting-file
• VPHA-voting-ENTRY-file

Overall VPHA reading completion today is: 57.85% completed.

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

VPHA communication: 2nd reading distribution round (target: Jun 8)

 The email below was sent to 63 VPHA co-authors and 30 prospective co-authors.

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Dear current and prospective VPHA co-authors,

We are about to start the 2nd round of distributing papers to read n VPHA.

Each of you can expect to get 3-5 papers to read within the next few days (you can view the distribution plan in the VPHA-author-info-update file, 2nd tab).

Those who can read Russian will get five papers. We have more papers in Russian that can be distributed this way, so if you can read Russian and are willing to read more, please let us know (email info@ vph-ald.com). More people are also welcome to join the reading. Especially if you know a person who can read Russian and would maybe be interested to join, you can give him/her a hint of VPHA. Volunteers can also spontaneously contact us at info@ vph-ald.com.

Those people who get less than five papers, in addition to the publications assigned to you, you could consider reading and commenting some of the central early ALD publications, e.g.:

• {Sveshnikova1970b} en ru - TiO2 on silicon
• {Suntola1976} fi swe en ru … Suntola 1st patent
• (Aleskovskii1990) en Aleskovskii, V. B. & Drozd, V. E. Principles of the precise synthesis of supermolecular objects: atomic layer epitaxy, molecular layering, chemical buildup, Acta Polytech. Scand., Chem. Technol. Ser., 1990, 195, 155-161  (not currently included in the ALD-history-evolving-file but can be added if there people provide comments, although this is outside the up-to-1986 time limit). 

VPHA HERALD Helsinki presentation files in vph-ald.com

Next week, the Finnish Centre of Excellence on Atomic Layer Deposition (ALDCoE) will organize a HERALD COST Action MP1402 workshop "ALD precursors and processes" in Helsinki (May 23-24). There will be top-class invited speakers, such as Prof. Jaan Aarik (University of Tartu), Prof. Christophe Detavernier (Ghent University), Prof. Erwin Kessels (Eindhoven University of Technology), Prof. Marc Heyns (IMEC), and Dr. Dennis Hausmann (LAM Research) --- access the full list at http://www.aldcoe.fi/herald/index.html.

ALDCoE participants and other ALD players in Finland will present their work in posters at the event, with associated 1-min 1-slide introductory talks. VPHA will have an organizational poster at the event: "Virtual project on the history of ALD: overview and current status." You can access the abstract, poster and one-slider through the VPHA webpage, http://vph-ald.com/ALD-history-publications.html, which contains a collection of references and links to significant publications dealing with the history of ALD. (If you notice that there is an ALD history -related publication missing in this page, please let us know, e.g. by emailing info@ vph-ald.com.)

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

VPHA status update 2016-05-16

 The status update below was sent to 63 co-authors and 30 prospective co-authors.

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Dear VPHA co-authors and prospective co-authors,

VPHA has progressed significantly during the past weeks. Here, you find an update on the following topics:

1. VPHA reading progress – Next check June 8
2. VPHA voting for conclusive recommended reading list, ALD 2016 poster: DL June 15
3. VPHA ALD History Review reminder
4. VPHA organisational poster at Helsinki ALDCoE/HERALD workshop
5. A comment without name in ALD-history-evolving-file
6. ALD-history-evolving-file how-to: Please preferably copy-paste instead of writing in the file directly
7. Other ALD History blog posts 

The previous update was sent on April 29th; you can access earlier updates collectively in this link.

Snapshot of VPHA progress (53% completed)

About a month ago, VPHA entered a new phase as we started actively distributing early ALD publications for reading. This activity has significantly accelerated the progress of VPHA; thank you to everyone who has participated in the work.

The graphs below show a snapshot of the VPHA author and reading situation taken May 14th. Comparison to the previous snapshots from May 5 (for authors) and April 28 (for reading) shows that good progress is taking place.

• At this moment, the total completion status is 53%. The crossover point, where the #comments received became larger than #comments needed, corresponding to >50% reading completion status, was on May 10, 2016.  
• The current number of co-authors is 63. Co-authors come from 18 countries in three continents: Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Russia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, The Netherlands, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States. 
• Work is not finished; for example, there still 59 publications in the ALD-history-evolving-file without any comments. 

VPHA progresses and the numbers change quickly. More volunteers are still welcome to join VPHA. It would be nice to say in a future update that we have four, or even five continents involved --- how about e.g. Brazil or Australia?

Finnish Seminar (TENK) on Research Integrity

The Finnish Advisory Board on Research Integrity (Tutkimuseettinen neuvottelukunta, TENK, http://www.tenk.fi/) organized on May 9 a seminar (in Finnish) "Vilppiä vai ei? Tutkimuseettinen seminaari". The seminar was very actual, as in Finland there has been lively---and good---discussion about research ethics in the recent months. It all started from an article in Helsingin Sanomat (7.2.) (see also Aivelo's science blog and Retraction watch).  I was happy to attend this event and to learn from the TENK representatives and e.g. from the insightful views shared by the rector of Aalto University, Tuula Teeri.

The guidelines of TENK, drawn up by the research community, have been signed by all Finnish universities as well as by research organizations such as my employer, VTT. One can view the TENK guidelines online; paper copies are provided upon request. The TENK webpages link also to several useful instructions, including international guidelines regarding research integrity, see http://www.tenk.fi/fi/ohjeet-ja-julkaisut.

• Hyvä tieteellinen käytäntö ja sen loukkausepäilyjen käsitteleminen Suomessa
• The Advisory Board's guidelines for responsible conduct of research
• http://www.tenk.fi/sv/arkiv/de-nya-forskningsetiska-anvisningar-och-modell-till-meritförteckning 

I have read these these guidelines several times, before and during VPHA. I recommend these or similar guidelines as essential reading for every scientist, in Finland and elsewhere.

Below is the programme of the event and some photos taken by me (Riikka Puurunen). Some of the photos have been published in Twitter (@rlpuu, hashtag #HTK-seminaari).

VPHA voting is ready for early adopters to test

VPHA voting files are ready for "early adopters" to use and test, to create the conclusive recommended reading list of early ALD publications for the ALD 2016 Ireland VPHA presentation.

You find the links to the two voting files + instructions though http://vph-ald.com/VPHAopenfiles.html (at the moment under the "under construction" heading) and in the bullets below. The early adopters can make their first vote already; you have time to update and change your vote until June 15th. At the moment, of the two options, only "option b" is open, that is, voting through the VPHA-voting-ENTRY-file.

• VPHA-voting-file (open for everyone to view)
• VPHA-voting-instructions (open for everyone to view)
• VPHA-voting-ENTRY-file (open for everyone to edit)

Baltic ALD 2016 in St Petersburg, Oct 2-4

Just announced at http://www.bald2016.ru: "The first time the Baltic Conference on Atomic Layer Deposition (BALD) will be arranged in St. Petersburg (Russia) where Prof. V.B. Aleskovskii with his colleagues and assistants created the foundations of ALD in the 1950x. The aim of the Conference is to demonstrate recent developments in the areas of technology and applications of Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) and to show contribution of the Russian research centres to ALD applications. ..."

The conference will be organized October 2-4, 2016. Abstract submission deadline June 15th.

• My travel report from St Petersburg from November 2015 is the all-times most popular blog post of ALD History Blog. 
• Here is also link to my travel report from ALD Russia 2015 in Moscow-Dolgoprudny. At the end of this report, I wished that the international ALD community could once meet in St. Petersburg. Sometimes, dreams seem to come true!  

See you in St. Petersburg!

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

VPHA author statistics: 55 from 16 countries + space for more (updated 6.5.)

(Updated) VPHA is by its character very international. At the moment we have fiftyfive (55) co-authors from fifteen (16) countries from three (3) continents (Asia, Europe, North America). The map and pie chart below show the co-author distribution between different countries. The previous overview was made in January, when we had 41 co-authors.

New co-authors can still join and be authors of the poster planned to ALD 2016 Ireland (abstract here). Would there be scientists with interest in the history of ALD e.g. in Australia, Belgium, Brazil, China, India, Japan, Norway, Portugal, Taiwan?

VPHA communication: first ALD reviews (ALE, ML)

The email below was sent on May 4, 2016, to 54 VPHA co-authors and 35 prospective co-authors. 

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Dear VPHA co-authors and prospective co-authors,

The VPHA reading is progressing slowly but steadily. According to the VPHA-reading-overview-file, the percent of reading completed is now 46.8%. I hope that by May 14^th, this number will be >> 50%.

While studying at the general progress, I've noticed that the two reviews written by the inventors/developers of ALD (ALE, ML), have not yet received very many comments in the ALD-history-evolving-file. These are the reviews by Aleskovskii (4 comments) and Suntola (1 comment):