Eleni Poupaki

I’m a professor in Applied Physics at the Eindhoven University of Technology. I’m leading the Plasma & Materials Processing group, which is a large research group working in the plasma science, materials science and surface science domain. A large part of the current research focuses on the preparation of nanolayers and nanostructures by atomic layer deposition and related processes. And I’m responsible for this blog!

From the ALD/ALE periodic table to an AI research assistant — Our Perspective paper on the next chapter of the AtomicLimits ALD/ALE database

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Our Perspective paper, “The AtomicLimits Database: Towards Artificial Intelligence as a Research Assistant for Atomic Layer Deposition and Etching”, has just been published in Chemistry of Materials, and we are delighted to share it with you. To mark the occasion, we would like to share the vision behind it: how can the AtomicLimits ALD/ALE database … Read more

Atomic Layer Deposition Process Development 2.0 — An updated 10-step workflow for systematically developing, optimizing and characterizing ALD processes

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Developing a reliable atomic layer deposition (ALD) process involves much more than finding conditions that produce a film. The reactants must be selected carefully, the self-limiting nature of the surface reactions must be demonstrated, and the composition, material properties, uniformity, nucleation and conformality of the film must be assessed. Eventually, the process should also be … Read more

ALD/ALE 2026 in Tampa: my Tutorial and AI Everywhere — Slides, live-poll results, and reflections on the current and future perspectives of ALD

This year, the annual ALD/ALE conference was held in Tampa, Florida (June 28–July 1, 2026). During the tutorial session on Sunday afternoon, I gave a talk titled Current and Future Perspectives on Atomic Layer Deposition. In this blog post, I would like to highlight some of the key messages from that tutorial, along with the … Read more

Celebrating ALE at ALD/ALE 2025 in Jeju, Korea – Updates to the history, new animations, and insights from industry

At the end of June (June 22–25, 2025), the ALD/ALE 2025 conference took place in Jeju, South Korea. The conference combines the International Conference on Atomic Layer Deposition (25th edition this year) with the Atomic Layer Etching Workshop (12th edition). Last year we celebrated the 50th anniversary of ALD in Helsinki, and I wrote a … Read more

Company Course on Plasma Physics – Teaching Elementary Plasma Physics to Companies in the Eindhoven Brainport Region

Earlier, I wrote a blog post about the significance of plasma physics in EUV lithography and how ASML recognizes its importance—so much that ASML has a portion of their “Research” and “Development & Engineering” staff receive training in elementary plasma physics, in addition to the substantial number of plasma physicists they have directly hired. That … Read more

Celebrating the 50th anniversary of ALD at ALD/ALE 2024 in Helsinki! – Updates of the history of ALD in timelines and the animated version of the ALD periodic table

Next week, from August 4 to 7, the ALD/ALE 2024 conference will be held in Helsinki, Finland. This event marks the 24th International Conference on Atomic Layer Deposition and will also include the 11th International Atomic Layer Etching Workshop. This year’s conference is particularly special as we celebrate the 50th anniversary of ALD, commemorating 50 … Read more

The Significance of Plasma Physics in EUV Lithography – Teaching ASML employees my Introduction to Plasma Physics course

My main teaching task at the Eindhoven University of Technology takes place in the fall when I teach the MSc course “Physics of Plasmas and Radiation”. This course is mandatory for all our MSc students in Applied Physics that follow the “Plasma & Beams” track (the other tracks within our department are “Nano, Quantum, Photonics” … Read more

On the role of ions during plasma ALD – An animation summarizing many years of our research

Last year we finished a project called “Taking plasma ALD to the next level” (funded by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), Applied and Engineering Sciences (AES) section). This project was devoted to obtaining a better understanding of plasma ALD such that open scientific and technological questions could be addressed resulting in new plasma … Read more

After enabling AI it is time for the plasma community to benefit from AI – Personal view in a short perspective article

This blog post is about a short perspective article that I recently wrote for the ILTPC newsletter. ILTPC stands for the International Low Temperature Plasma Community. It is one of the two main communities where I feel at home. The other one is the atomic scale processing community. This one is basically the atomic layer … Read more

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