The Dutch Vacuum Society – or Nederlandse Vacuümvereniging (NEVAC) – publishes the so-called “NEVAC blad”, a magazine that appears three times a year. The issue for June 2020 just appeared and it is a special issue completely devoted to atomic layer deposition (ALD). Together with my colleague Bart Macco, I was the guest editor. Originally the idea was to publish this special issue and to distribute it at the ALD/ALE 2020 conference which was going to be held in Ghent Belgium this year. Having the conference in the Lowlands of Belgium and the Netherlands would have been a nice opportunity to highlight all the ALD activities in the Netherlands. But then we were faced with COVID-19 and all the conferences had to be cancelled, at least in their physical form. From Monday June 29 to Wednesday July 1, we will now have a virtual conference that will certainly be worth attending (and it is partially free!) but it will not be possible to distribute hardcopies of the special issue on ALD of the NEVAC blad. Yet, we can do that also online and this is what we want to do through this blog post.

The articles and leading authors

To highlight the activities on ALD in the Netherlands, we asked the principle investigators involved in ALD at the Dutch research institutions (mostly universities) to write a brief article on the main topic they are currently working on. Below you will find a list of the articles and the leading authors, names that are probably very familiar to you if you are heavily involved in ALD yourself and a regular attendant of the ALD/ALE conferences. As you will note, not all articles are about ALD, there is also an article about atomic layer etching (ALE), the etch counterpart of ALD that is currently rapidly gaining attention. The special issue starts with a kind of introduction article that I have written myself and afterwards you find articles about ALD methods (plasma-assisted ALD; hot-wire assisted ALD; ALD on particles; spatial ALD); ALD applications (ALD for silicon and perovskite solar cells, ALD for flexible and large-area electronics); and emerging ALD approaches (ALD for area-selective deposition and ALD for 2D materials). Obviously, ALD research in the Netherlands is not limited to these topics but they are the main research directions at this moment of time.

The special issue on ALD can be downloaded for free here.

• ALD: a true enabling nanotechology – And how the Netherlands contributed to its wide spread application  – Erwin Kessels (Eindhoven Univ. of Technology)
• Plasma-assisted ALD: high-volume manufacturing and new opportunities in research – Harm Knoops (Oxford Instruments Plasma Technology & Eindhoven Univ. of Technology)
• Hot-wire assisted ALD: another example of radical-enhanced ALD – Alexey Kovalgin (Univ. of Twente)
• ALD on particles; scalable production of nanostructured materials – Ruud van Ommen (Delft Univ. of Technology)
• ALD for crystalline silicon solar cells – Innovate at the nanoscale, deploy at the gigawatt scale – Bart Macco (Eindhoven Univ. of Technology)
• Interface engineering by ALD in organo-metal halide perovskite solar cells; reflections on the state-of-the-art and perspectives – Adriana Creatore (Eindhoven Univ. of Technology)
• Spatial Atomic layer deposition for large-area and flexible electronics – Paul Poodt (TNO – Holst Centre)
• Area-selective ALD for bottom-up fabrication of nanoelectronics – Adrie Mackus (Eindhoven Univ. of Technology)
• Tailoring the properties of 2D transition metal dichalcogenides by ALD – Ageeth Bol (Eindhoven Univ. of Technology)
• Etching with atomic-level accuracy: the emerging field of atomic layer etching – Adrie Mackus (Eindhoven Univ. of Technology)

ALD companies in the Netherlands

Another intention was to highlight the many commercial activities on ALD in the Netherlands. Although being a small country, we have many companies that have their business in the field of ALD. As a matter of fact, this is a disproportionately high number compared to other countries. A list is given below. Most of them are original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and many of them have their business in spatial ALD. The latter was certainly trigged by the spatial ALD research by the applied research institute TNO that carries out the spatial ALD research within the Holst Centre. Furthermore, the largest and worldwide best-known Dutch ALD company is ASM International. This is a 1000+ MEuro company that is based in 14 countries but has its headquarters in Almere, The Netherlands. Through its acquisition of the Finnish company Microchemistry (now: ASM Microchemistry) in 1999, ASM has really been a leading company for the introduction of ALD in high-volume manufacturing in the semiconductor industry.

Company	Location	Website	OEM	Main business
ASM	Almere	www.asm.com	Yes	Semi market
Delft IMP	Delft	www.delft-imp.nl	No	Nanostructuring particles
Levitech	Almere	www.levitech.nl	Yes	Solar & Semi market
SALD	Eindhoven	www.spatialALD.com	Yes	Thin film applications
SALDtech	Eindhoven	www.saldtech.com	Yes	Display market
Smit Thermal Solutions	Eindhoven	www.smitthermalsolutions.com	Yes	Thin film application
SoLayTec	Eindhoven	www.solaytec.com	Yes	Solar market
VDL ETG	Eindhoven	www.vdletg.com	No	Contract manufacturing

ALD@NL day – November 6, 2020

As the physical event of the ALD/ALE 2020 conference in Ghent had to be cancelled due to COVID-19, we thought it would be good idea to organize a local event in the Netherlands later this year. This would be a national event that would aim for bringing researchers, technologists and other people interested in ALD together to learn about the latest developments in research, development and manufacturing. We aim at attendants from the Netherlands although people from outside will also be welcome. The day will feature presentations and provide ample opportunity for networking. If the situation with respect to COVID-19 allows for it, the ALD@NL day will take place on Friday November 6, 2020. Please reserve the date! You also preregister here to receive updates on the event.

Hardcopies & acknowledgements

In case you would be interested in receiving 1 or more hardcopies of the NEVAC magazine, please send an e-mail to info@atomiclimits.com

Finally we would like to thank the NEVAC and in particular the editor Claud Biemans for her outstanding help in putting this special issue together.