Recording of invited talk on catalysis ALD — past, present, future
This week, I had the honor to participate in a doctoral thesis committee at TU Delft (Albert Santoso: congratulations to the new doctor, and the supervising professors, Prof. Ruud van Ommen and Prof. Volkert van Steijn). I also give an invited talk related to atomic layer deposition (ALD) for catalysis at a seminar by Pro2Tech. Title: Past, present and future of atomic layer deposition for catalysis: perspective from Aalto University, Finland.
Abstract: Aalto University is the alma mater of the Finnish inventor of atomic layer deposition (ALD) Tuomo Suntola, who patented ALD in 1974 and received Millennium Technology Prize for his pioneering work in 2018. Research for ALD on catalysis in Finland started at Microchemistry and at Neste company in late 1980s, and already in the 1990s, research was active at Aalto University’s predecessor, Helsinki University of Technology. Since those days, ALD has become a mainstream technology in the semiconductor industry, and the interest for ALD on particulate matter for catalysis and other applications has become global. In addition to history, I will in the talk share recent examples of ALD for catalysis from Aalto University, and discuss future research needs and opportunities. The talk partly builds upon review activities of ALD on particulate matter, being carried out in collaboration between researchers from TU Delft and Aalto University.
The recorded talk is now available in Youtube. There I talk about past, present and future of catalyst ALD, from my/Aalto University perspective. Interestingly, the talk contains new information on the history of catalysis ALD. Just like the general history of the field of ALD, with the two independent inventions, the history of catalysis ALD has not so far been dealt with the clarity it deserves.
I find it important that the ALD community would update its view, considering the two independent inventions. We must realize that the view shared in the earlier reviews is not the whole truth. Someone must dig into history first to find the facts, before one can write about them. I personally started digging into the history of ALD during my time as postdoctoral fellow at IMEC, Belgium, and wrote my findings in what became the “surface chemistry fundamentals ALD review”, Journal of Applied Physics 97 (2005) 121301; https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1940727.
In the Virtual Project on the History of ALD (VPHA, 2013-2022), we continued that digging work, in large international collaboration (eventually with >70 scientists from >20 countries). Four scientific publications resulted, see the list below. The ALD-history-evolving-file, in which we collected information about early works, is still there.
Because none of the (many) existing catalysis ALD reviews really cite the early works, this ALD-history-evolving-file was my source of history of catalysis ALD done under the name Molecular Layering, for this presentation at TU Delft. The earliest scientific article on catalysis ALD I found is by Koltsov et al. from 1970 (Kinetics and Catalysis 11 (1970) 835-841). It deals with the hydrolysis of carbon tetrachloride to carbon dioxide and hydrogen chloride, and is available in English.
Articles on the history of ALD, created within the Virtual Project on the History of ALD (VPHA):
- Essay: R. L. Puurunen, “A Short History of Atomic Layer Deposition: Tuomo Suntola’s Atomic Layer Epitaxy”, Chemical Vapor Deposition 20 (2014) 332-344. DOI: 10.1002/cvde.201402012. Open Access.
- Essay: A. A. Malygin, V. E. Drozd, A. A. Malkov, V. M. Smirnov: “From V. B. Aleskovskii’s “Framework” Hypothesis to the Method of Molecular Layering/Atomic Layer Deposition”, Chemical Vapor Deposition 21 (2015) 216-240. DOI: 10.1002/cvde.201502013.
- Review article: “Recommended reading list of early publications on atomic layer deposition—Outcome of the “Virtual Project on the History of ALD””, Esko Ahvenniemi, Andrew R. Akbashev, Saima Ali, Mikhael Bechelany, Maria Berdova, Stefan Boyadjiev, David C. Cameron, Rong Chen, Mikhail Chubarov, Veronique Cremers, Anjana Devi, Viktor Drozd, Liliya Elnikova, Gloria Gottardi, Kestutis Grigoras, Dennis M. Hausmann, Cheol Seong Hwang, Shih-Hui Jen, Tanja Kallio, Jaana Kanervo, Ivan Khmelnitskiy, Do Han Kim, Lev Klibanov, Yury Koshtyal, A. Outi I. Krause, Jakob Kuhs, Irina Kärkkänen, Marja-Leena Kääriäinen, Tommi Kääriäinen, Luca Lamagna, Adam A. Łapicki, Markku Leskelä, Harri Lipsanen, Jussi Lyytinen, Anatoly Malkov, Anatoly Malygin, Abdelkader Mennad, Christian Militzer, Jyrki Molarius, Małgorzata Norek, Çağla Özgit-Akgün, Mikhail Panov, Henrik Pedersen, Fabien Piallat, Georgi Popov, Riikka L. Puurunen, Geert Rampelberg, Robin H. A. Ras, Erwan Rauwel, Fred Roozeboom, Timo Sajavaara, Hossein Salami, Hele Savin, Nathanaelle Schneider, Thomas E. Seidel, Jonas Sundqvist, Dmitry B. Suyatin, Tobias Törndahl, J. Ruud van Ommen, Claudia Wiemer, Oili M. E. Ylivaara, Oksana Yurkevich, Journal of Vacuum Science and Technology A 35 (2017) 010801 (13 pages). DOI: 10.1116/1.4971389. Open access.
- Invited proceedings article: R. L. Puurunen, “Learnings from an Open Science Effort: Virtual Project on the History of ALD”, ECS Transactions 86(6) (2018) 3-17; doi:10.1149/08606.0003ecst. Open access preprint, DOI: 10.1149/osf.io/exyv3.
Below, I share screen shots of some of the slides dealing with the history of ALD and catalysis ALD.