Publication plan for the
virtual project on the history of ALD

October 18, 2013

Riikka Puurunen (Dr.), Senior Scientist, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland

Aziz Abdulagatov (Dr.), Postdoctoral Fellow, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), USA

Jonas Sundqvist (Dr.), Group Leader High-k Devices, Fraunhofer IPMS-CNT, Germany

Annina Titoff, editor-in-chief, aldpulse.com

Background

• This publication plan is related to the “virtual project on the history of ALD”, introduction of which and invitation to participate can be found in http://aldpulse.com/node/189 and introductory slides from http://www.slideshare.net/RiikkaPuurunen/ald-historyproject-openintroductioncurrent.
• The goals of the publication plans are 1) To document early publications about ALD and spread information about them, and 2) to generate interaction amongst the ALD Community.

1) Poster at Baltic ALD 2014

We plan to publish the result of the “virtual project on the history of ALD” (info: http://aldpulse.com/node/189) as a poster at the Baltic ALD conference, Helsinki, May 12-13, 2014

• The poster will mostly consist of text and report the literature list and comments collected during the “virtual project on the history of ALD” during the second half of 2013.
• Everyone who has contributed by sharing at least one Comment on an early publication, will be listed as an author. The list of authors will be alphabetical (basis: last name). Depending on how many people we get to contribute, the number of authors is estimated to be between 10 and 100 (even more is ok).
• The scope of reviewing the literature is from the earliest possible relevant papers tentatively up to 1986 [when the Goodman and Pessa review appeared, J. Appl. Phys. 60, R65 (1986).] If this seems like too large a scope, we may change the end year later. 

2) Listing the early works at the aldpulse.com site

After BALD 2014, the reference list created will be published at the aldpulse.com website.

• The list will include the authors, titles translated to English, original titles in the original language (Russian, Finnish, German, ...), and the publication info.
• A note will be made somewhere near to the reference list, acknowledging that the list was created in an open and collaborative way in the effort called the “virtual project on the history of ALD”.
• The comments made in the Google file will NOT in general be included.
• If it appears that it would be useful to include some comments, the permission to do so will be individually sought by the one who made the comment, and the comment will only be included if a clear written acceptance (email or similar) is given.  

3) Poster at ALD 2014, Kyoto

The result of the “virtual project on the history of ALD” will be published as a poster also at ALD 2014, Kyoto

• The ALD 2014 Kyoto poster contains the same material as the BALD 2014 poster, and optionally, further analysis of the results.
• Everyone who has contributed by sharing at least one Comment, will be again listed as an author, in an alphabetical order.

4) A review article on the early history of ALD in English

A review article will be written on the early developments of ALD in a scientific journal.

1. Title is tentatively: “On the early history of atomic layer deposition: molecular layering and atomic layer epitaxy”
2. The author list is tentatively: Riikka L. Puurunen, Aziz Abdulagatov, … , Jonas Sundqvist. In addition to Riikka, Aziz and Jonas, we seek two types of additional authors.

1. We will contact people, who we potentially think could contribute significantly to the writing process, and request them to become authors. Some of the original authors of ML and ALE who have lived the early ALD days themselves naturally will be contacted, and we have other people in mind also.
2. OPEN AUTHORSHIP. We will offer the possibility of becoming an author to anyone interested. We do this mainly for two reasons. (1) Our goal is to say everything that needs to be said of the early evolution of ALD in this review article, and we hope that the open authorship will ensure this. These types of authors are most likely scientists who have worked with ALD in the mid-1980’s or earlier. (2) Writing the review article is a lot of hard work, and we need people who are willing to do that hard work. These types of authors are most likely younger people, who have a passion in ALD, and are willing to give some of their expertise, effort and time for the common good for generating a great review paper.
   If you got interested and you fit in one of the two categories, please contact us and explain what is your motivation for joining and how you would like to contribute. Before applying, please look through instructions below carefully, to make sure that you are comfortable with the framework in which we plan to write the review.

3. Contents: The contents of the review article will be partly based on the literature list and comments made in the “virtual project on the history of ALD”, and partly other sources. Other sources include further interpretations and experiences of the authors, books, interviews, etc. The contribution of the “virtual project on the history of ALD” will be clearly acknowledged.
4. Schedule: We plan to start working on the review during fall 2013, at the same time as executing the “virtual project on the history of ALD”. We plan to submit the manuscript during the first half of 2014.
5. Coverage: The review article will cover the same time frame as the “virtual project on the history of ALD”: from the earliest possible relevant literature up to and including 1986, when the first review article on atomic layer deposition written by others than the original inventors was published [Goodman & Pessa, J. Appl. Phys. 60, R65 (1986)]. We may also make comments on later developments and think of future perspectives.  

ABOUT THE OPEN AUTHORSHIP

In the “sphere of openness, respect, and trust” in which the “virtual project on the history of ALD” is being carried out, a special feature of this review article is that we will open up the possibility of becoming an author for anyone, who is interested in it (“open authorship”).

In this review article, we are dealing with a part of history which has been poorly described so far, and where the “different sides” may have highly different views on initially. Our goal is to write a description of the history, which both the Western and the Eastern ALD communities agree with. This is a challenging task, and the writing work will also be more challenging than usually. There will be a multitude of authors from highly different backgrounds, and common language for the basis of discussions will not always exist to start with (both literally, meaning that the authors speak different languages, and figuratively, meaning that the authors come from different technological backgrounds and geographical area), and they may also have highly different habits of writing. All authors should consider the following and agree to work together with others respecting these approaches:

• We will describe the ALD history in the chronological order that has taken place. This means that molecular layering will be described first and atomic layer epitaxy second.
• We will have a neutral attitude to all works and we will describe both ML or ALE developments objectively, not seeking to show that one development would have been more important than the other (they have both been important). 
• All participating authors will confirm to respect all early work and all authors and co-authors at an equal basis.
• This should be self-evident but is repeated here for clarity: in the writing, we will follow the highest scientific standards, including the following.

• For all statements made, we provide references to the original sources, and information is not copied from other sources without citing them (this includes wikipedia).
• We attempt to show the best parts of all works (and all other significant parts also), and we will not choose to show information that would show a lesser impact of the work than possible.
• For all figures and show-items copied from published works, we seek to have the permission to republish from the copyright owner and the original author (if still alive).

• We will design the contents of the paper together with all co-authors in advance, defining the table of contents and the subsections to be written. We will make a tentative list of show-items also. Only after we have roughly agreed on the contents and on the responsibilities with the co-authors, shall we start the writing phase. (Changes may, of course, be made later to the original plan, after we see how the work evolves.)
• The plan is to assign for each subsection a main responsible and at least one and probably two “co-responsibles”. Preferably, for each subsection, there should be people assigned from different backgrounds (Russian/Finnish/other European/American/Japanese/other?). The main responsibles will collaborately work out the text, making sure that is understandable by both the Western and the Eastern readers.
• When the subsections are combined, the goal is that ALL authors read ALL texts and give constructive critical questions on the contents. (All questions should, of course, be attempted to answer.) Thus, we will do something like a peer review within a manuscript, which should ensure that a high-quality paper will come out and all authors will collectively bear the responsibility for the contents of the whole article.
• As in the normal peer review, we realize that in the in-paper peer review there may be different opinions, and one would write the text differently than the other. We highly recommend that the responsible persons will discuss and seek a compromise of the text that pleases to sufficient extent all parties. In cases of conflict which cannot be settled this way, Riikka, Aziz and Jonas will have the final decision power.
• This should be self-evident but is mentioned anyway: the review paper will be submitted (by Riikka) only after each author has confirmed that the contents and submission are ok. (A deadline will be set for response.) 
• One applies as an author by sending a motivation letter confirming the will to become an author and describing the input the person would like to give to the review paper. The motivation letters are sent to Riikka Puurunen (riikka.puurunen @vtt.fi), Aziz Abdulagatov (aziz.abdulagatov @nist.gov) and Jonas Sundqvist (jonas.sundqvist @cnt.fraunhofer.de). (Those contacted directly by Riikka, Aziz, and Jonas, of course don’t have to apply.) Riikka, Aziz and Jonas will decide, whether the application is accepted. Each author should be willing to provide real input to the paper and actively contribute to the preparation of the manuscript in the timeframe given, and to confirm this in the motivation letter; mere high status in the ALD community is not a basis for acceptance.
• At the moment of writing this, the details how to co-edit a paper, are still in development. It is likely that Google docs will be used, meaning that all authors need to have/create a Google account. We may use the LaTeX typing system, as this significantly simplifies the handling of the references (previous experience with LaTeX is not necessary).
• As a special request, we want to add an author description at the end of the paper, where in addition to the “standard” description of the person and a photo, each author is requested to write a description of his/her interest in this project and optionally can describe one’s contribution. All authors should provide a photo and a description. This should preferably be made at a rather early phase of the writing project, because this helps the authors also to understand each other’s background.

5) A review article on the early history of ALD in Russian

Our goal is to get the ALD history review paper, written originally in English, published as a Russian translation (thus, from English to Russian) in Russian scientific journal. We will most likely go for one of the journals where much of the molecular layering works have been published, but the details have not been decided yet.  

6) Oral presentation at Kyoto 2014?

We will request an oral presentation at ALD 2014, to describe the major turning points of the work, as has been found in the process of writing the review article. Of course, we cannot be sure that this will be accepted.

• Those, who are the authors of the review paper, will be the authors of the presentation also (Riikka L. Puurunen, Aziz Abdulagatov, … Jonas Sundqvist, and others).
• If accepted as an oral presentation, the presentation will be given by Riikka. 
• The contents for the presentation will be chosen from the review paper, which we hope will have the status of “submitted” at the time of ALD 2014

7) Updating wikipedia

If after accomplishing the “virtual project on the history of ALD” and writing the review paper it is evident that the information in wikipedia on the ALD pages can be improved, this will be done. (If you would like to volunteer for this, please contact us.)  

• Page of “atomic layer deposition”
• Page of “multiple independent discoveries”