A little over a month ago, we proudly hosted the second edition of Spatial ALD Day in Eindhoven. After our first edition in 2022, we were thrilled to finally bring the community together again! Spatial ALD Day 2.0 was organized in the framework of the NWO OTP project on spatial ALD and the EU Pepperoni project, aiming to strengthen the ties between academic research and industrial innovations in spatial ALD. In this post, we look back at the day andshare some insights and feedback from attendees. We furthermore show several photos that captured the atmosphere, and provide downloadable slides from the tutorials and some of the company presentations.
Attendance: A Strong Mix of Industry and Academia
This year we welcomed 86 participants, with 49 attendees from industry and the remainder represented universities and research institutes. It was also a nice increase from the 55 attendees for the first edition!
Looking at the participants’ countries of origin, by far most visitors came from the Netherlands. While the fact that we hosted the event here is probably a big factor, I think the high concentration of companies active in spatial ALD in the Netherlands also plays a role. Of course, we were very pleased to welcome a notable group of international participants as well. Several companies even travelled from overseas for this one-day event, which we deeply appreciate.
Morning Tutorials: From ALD Fundamentals to Upscaling via Spatial ALD
The morning started with two tutorials:
- Introduction to ALD – by Bart Macco (so by myself)
- Upscaling via Spatial ALD – by Paul Poodt
Both sessions aimed to give newcomers and experts alike a strong foundation for the scientific and industrial talks later that day. The slides for both tutorials can be downloaded at the end of this blog post.
Mentimeter Insights from the audience
Before entering the scientific session, we engaged the audience using Mentimeter. The condensed responses — shown in the bar charts below — covered a range of topics from unique selling points of spatial ALD to where academia can contribute most.
Some outcomes were expected, such as “speed/throughput” being ranked as a key unique selling point of spatial ALD. But we also saw more surprising, insightful results: for example, various participants view plasma integration as a promising way for spatial ALD to compete even more strongly with conventional batch ALD.
And of course, we were delighted to see Spatial ALD Day score second place for the question “What can academia do for spatial ALD companies?”, right behind the ever-important “Develop new processes and materials.”
Scientific Session: Advances in Plasma and Doping in Spatial ALD
The scientific session highlighted contributions from two of our PhD students:
- Ralph Houben presented his work on understanding atmospheric plasmas for spatial ALD.
- Mike van de Poll showed how plasma-enhanced spatial ALD can achieve high conformality and he shared insights into improving doping during spatial ALD.
Although we cannot share their presentations yet publicly, hopefully soon you can read more about it in publications! 😊
Industry & Applied Research Contributions
After lunch we shifted focus to applied research and industrial perspectives. We were pleased to host excellent presentations from (listed alphabetically): AirLiquide, Beneq, Powall, SALD, SparkNano, TNO, and TU Twente.
Several speakers have kindly agreed to share their slides publicly. Where available, these can be downloaded at the end of this page.
The day concluded with a lab tour and a well-deserved buffet dinner and networking drinks, giving participants ample opportunity to connect and continue discussions.
Photo Gallery
Below is a photo gallery capturing the moments of the day—including presentations, discussions, lab tours, and of course our group photo. A special thanks to Niels Hogendoorn for taking the photos.
Feedback From Participants
At the end of the event, we again collected feedback via Mentimeter. The overall appraisal of the day was very high, which we are extremely happy to see.
Participants also left open-ended feedback. Besides many positive comments, there were also constructive suggestions for improvement. The most common were to include more breaks and to consider extending to a longer or multi-day format. I think participants had much to discuss, and we often had to interrupt lively break discussions as our next session started. Fortunately discussions continued during the evening dinner and drinks! For the next edition, we will certainly try to relax the program a bit. And of course, we are open for further suggestions.
Looking Ahead
With two successful editions now behind us, it’s clear that there is a strong community push to continue organizing Spatial ALD Day. We are considering making it a recurring event, perhaps every two to three years.
For now, we look back on a wonderful and inspiring day—one where I had the chance to reconnect with long-time colleagues and meet many new faces in the spatial ALD community. Thank you again to everyone who joined and contributed!
Downloadable Presentations
- Tutorial: Introduction to ALD – Bart Macco
- Tutorial: Upscaling via Spatial ALD – Paul Poodt
- SparkNano: Spatial ALD in porous substrates – Paul Poodt
- UTwente: Spatial MLD and Nanofiltration – Fred Roozeboom
Finally, a big thank you to Jeanne Loonen and Indy Mohammadi for helping with the organization!
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