Conclusion

Although already patented in 1977 at the same time as temporal ALD, spatial ALD was only developed at the beginning of the 21st century. The possibility of using ALD at higher deposition rates, at atmospheric pressure (and even in the open air), has focused attention on SALD with a strong development momentum. Since the first publications in 2004 and 2008, the number of publications has grown steadily. SALD has also made the transition from laboratory to industrial scale, and several commercial systems are already available for both laboratory and production use.

SALD is a highly flexible deposition technology that allows great freedom of design, as demonstrated by the growing number of reactors currently under development. Because precursors are continuously injected into the SALD, efficient separation by the gas/inert zone flow must be ensured. Analytical fluid...