Erwin Kessels 
I’m sure you have heard the buzz in the field of artificial intelligence (AI)… The promise of AI is to augment human abilities in areas such as decision-making, problem-solving, and other tasks. AI systems aim to simulate human intelligence and learn from data to improve their performance over time. ChatGPT is an AI language model … Read more
***Quick link to the open access paper: “Foundations of atomic-level plasma processing in nanoelectronics”*** We have just published a topical review paper entitled “Foundations of atomic-level plasma processing in nanoelectronics” in the journal Plasma Sources Science and Technology. This review is part of a two-part collection of papers on Foundations of Low Temperature Plasmas and … Read more
The scientific and technological interest in atomic layer deposition (ALD) and atomic layer etching (ALE) has been surging in the last decade and the sheer volume of ALD and ALE papers can make it difficult to get a clear overview of what is going on. Luckily, the studies and trends are often summarized and compared … Read more
On February 9, 2022 (1:00 pm – 5:00 pm (EDT) I will give my second AVS Webinar. Last year I gave a webinar about the topic “Plasma-Assisted Atomic Layer Deposition: From Basics to Applications” and this year the topic is again atomic layer deposition (ALD) but now from an application perspective. The latter means that … Read more
In 2021 it was 10 years ago that I took over the chair position of the Plasma & Materials Processing (PMP) group at the Department of Applied Physics of the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e). Since then I have been leading this research group and I thought that it was a good time now to … Read more
It is more than 2 years ago that Elsa Alvaro (Northwestern University Libraries) and Angel Yanguas-Gil (Argonne National Laboratory) published their research article “Characterizing the field of Atomic Layer Deposition: Authors, topics, and collaborations” in PLOS ONE. This article provided some interesting insights into how the method of ALD evolved over time while the field … Read more
One of the most exciting presentations I saw in last year was given by Rajesh Krishnamurthy, a senior technology analyst of TechInsights. He was invited at the 19th International Conference on Atomic Layer Deposition in Bellevue WA, which also featured the 6th International Atomic Layer Etching Workshop. During this ALD/ALE 2019 meeting (which I covered … Read more
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 … Read more
Last November the method of atomic layer deposition (ALD) turned 45 years old. The date of November 29, 1974 was the priority date for the first patent in the field of ALD. I considered this a good occasion to share an ALD timeline and animated version of the ALD periodic table on this blog. The … Read more
Atomic layer deposition (ALD) has become a very popular method for the preparation of (ultra)thin films over the last two decades, yet it has a rich history which goes back many more years. It is well known that the first patent on ALD was applied for in 1974 [1]. The priority date was November 29, … Read more