Highlights – Page 3 – AtomicLimits

Control of the ion energy during plasma-based atomic-scale processing – animation and publication on tailored waveform biasing

January 6, 2021December 17, 2020 Adrie Mackus

This post is about the value of industry-academia partnerships, and about how such collaborations can trigger new innovations. This month exactly 3 years ago, we were approached by Prodrive Technologies, a company in the Eindhoven area developing and manufacturing electronics and mechatronics, to talk about the possibilities for developing a power supply for the plasma … Read more

Introducing the AtomicLimits Image Library – finding images for re-use!

December 2, 2020November 25, 2020 Bart Macco

We are very happy to introduce our latest project to serve the community: the AtomicLimits Image Library! You can find this page in the menu at the top of the website. The image library is a central place where you can find figures related to a variety of topics in the field of Atomic Scale … Read more

Visualizing the contributions of key authors to the field of ALD – Exploring newly implemented functionality of the ALD/Database

July 27, 2026October 5, 2020 Erwin Kessels, Vincent Vandalon

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

ALD in the Netherlands – Special issue of the NEVAC magazine (free): How a small country can be big in nanolayers

June 8, 2020June 8, 2020 Erwin Kessels, Bart Macco

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

Atomic layer etching turns 32.5 years old! – A good occasion to share an ALE timeline and an animated version of the ALE periodic table

November 11, 2020March 2, 2020 Erwin Kessels

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 turns 45! – The history of ALD in a timeline and an animated version of the ALD periodic table

November 28, 2019 Erwin Kessels

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

Here we go again… the online ALE database! – A website where you can easily search, find, and add ALE processes

July 22, 2019July 22, 2019 Erwin Kessels

It might not be fully unexpected but after launching our online ALD database a few months ago, but now we have now also put together an online database on Atomic Layer Etching (ALE). So here it is! Similar to the ALD database, you can also access it through a link at the top of the … Read more

And here it is… the online ALD database
– A website where you can easily search, browse, and add ALD processes

March 28, 2019March 20, 2019 Erwin Kessels

Many of us ALD researchers have been talking – or even dreaming – about it for some years: an online database listing all ALD materials and processes. And now we have it! You can access it through the link at the top (or the menu on mobile devices) of the Atomic Limits blog. You can click … Read more

Reviews, reviews, reviews… and another one about ALD! – An update on the status and prospects of plasma ALD

January 17, 2022March 19, 2019 Harm Knoops

Note: a list of ALD review papers is available at the end. Atomic layer deposition or ALD is amazingly popular these days and this is also reflected by the large number of review articles that have appeared over the recent years. The latter will be illustrated by an overview at the end of this blog, … Read more

Overview of all materials prepared by atomic layer deposition (ALD)
– An up-to-date and colorful periodic table (to download)

March 28, 2019January 28, 2019 Erwin Kessels

As you might have noticed, we have just started a year in which we celebrate the discovery of the Periodic System by Dmitri Mendeleev: 2019 is the 150th anniversary of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements and has therefore been proclaimed the “International Year of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements (IYPT2019)” by the United Nations … Read more