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.

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.

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).

ALD 2016: Travel notes

Updated 28.8.2016

The 16th International Conference on Atomic Layer Deposition ALD2016 (http://www.ald2016.ie), including the 3rd International Workshop on Atomic Layer Etching, was organized in Dublin, Ireland, July 24-27, 2016. I had a pleasure to participate at the conference as a speaker, poster presenter, and as an International Programme Committee member. This blog post shares my travel notes from conference, thereby continuing my series on travel notes first written for the ALD Russia 2015 workshop and thereafter for Baltic ALD 2015, my St Petersburg visit Nov 2015, and HERALD Helsinki seminar May 2016.

ALD 2016 conference chairs Simon Elliott and Jonas Sundqvist. Photo from Twitter, @jv3sund. 

Since the first American Vacuum Society Topical Conference on Atomic Layer Deposition  in Monterey CA 2001, the international ALD conference series organized every odd year in USA by the AVS and every even year outside USA in collaboration with AVS, has evolved into a major event that provides the best possible snapshot of ALD at the forefront of science at academia and industry alike. There were more than 800 registered participants at the meeting, of which about 50% were industrial; and about 400 presentations, of which about 10% were industrial. The conference lasted for three days and comprised maximum four parallel sessions and two days of poster sessions. All presentations were recorded and will be made available on a DVD after the conference (past DVDs can be bought from AVS by contacting heather@ avs.org).

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.

Baltic ALD 2015, Tartu: travel notes by Riikka Puurunen

The 13th International Baltic Conference on Atomic Layer Deposition, Baltic ALD 2015 was organised in Tartu, Estonia, September 28-29, 2015. Conference chairs were Prof. Jaan Aarik and Dr. Kaupo Kukli. Conference website: http://www.bald2015.ee/. Right after the conference, on September 30, 2015, there was the yearly meeting day of the HERALD COST network on ALD (http://www.european-ald.net/).

I have not visited Tartu before, and it was very interesting to attend this Baltic ALD conference in the historical city of Tartu, where the first report of ALD (then, ALE) is from year 1983. This post in the ALD History Blog finally shares my travel notes from Baltic ALD, both as text and photos. BALD Engineering collected a "photo show" during the event, which can be found here. In Twitter, post and pictures from Baltic ALD conferences can be found back with hashtag #BalticALD.

Colours, colours! The Baltic ALD 2015 conference was organized at the Physicum building of Tartu University. Photo by Riikka Puurunen. 

ALD Russia 2015 workshop: travel notes by Riikka Puurunen

Below you find my travel report from the ALD Russia workshop in Dolgoprudny, Moscow region, September 2015. Originally, this travel report was published as a stand-along text through Google docs and also through through BALD Engineering blog. 

After the ALD Russia workshop, this ALD History blog has been created, and one travel report published in it (St. Petersburg, 2015, Puurunen). Since the ALD Russia workshop was historical in nature in many ways, and since it will be wise to collect ALD-history-related travel reports in one place, I want to publish the travel report here again. To this version, I have added a significant number of previously unpublished photographic material.

Travel notes, St Petersburg, November 2015, by Riikka Puurunen

I had the pleasure of visiting St. Petersburg in November 2015. This was my second visit to St. Petersburg related to ALD; the first was in November 2013, when I gave a talk at the opening seminar of Beneq AppLab at ETU (LETI). The purpose of this visit in Nov 2015 was to give an invited talk on the state-of-art of ALD at the Flexible Electronics conference organized by LETI - ETU (electrotechnical university). Now, as also in 2013, I could also meet local ALD colleagues, including the "grand old names" of Molecular Layering (ML)-ALD, Prof. Anatoly Malygin and Prof. Victor Drozd.