Advanced thin films for energy and sustainable applications

Thin films are core components of multitude of devices ranging from sensors to memories. It is therefore necessary to develop sustainable thin film deposition approaches to integrate functional materials into devices. This symposium aims at highlighting recent developments in the field of thin film deposition of functional materials and devices and to foster collaborations between researchers focusing on different aspects such as, development of innovative deposition methods, device integration and testing, advanced characterization.

Scope:

Materials are at the core of our civilization. Major advancements in the human history had usually been accompanied by the discovery of new materials or the mastering of new fabrication methods. In the last century, the integration of new materials into ever more advanced and complex devices had required the development of fabrication methods allowing the deposition of thin films. Indeed, while bulk materials can result inmany useful applications, our microelectronics technology and the aim to miniaturize functional devices and control the properties of surfaces and interfaces at the nanoscale has imposed the use of thin films.

As a result, different types of deposition methods have been developed, ranging from solution to vapor ones, and from chemical to physical ones, each with their assets and drawbacks. Thus, generally speaking, physical deposition methods such as Pulsed laser deposition or sputtering allow the deposition of a multitude of materials with high quality but the high vacuum used in these approaches has a detrimental impact on cost and scalability. Conversely, solution and vapour chemical approaches such as electrodeposition or chemical vapour deposition are more interesting in terms of cost and scalability but show limitations in terms on material quality and achievability.

Recent research efforts have thus focused in developing new deposition approaches trying to overcome the aforementioned limitations. In addition, ingenious deposition methods have been developed to tackle the deposition of new classes of functional materials such as 2D materials (e.g. graphene, chalcogenides, etc) or soft and hybrid materials (e.g. conductive polymers, biofilms, metalorganic frameworks, etc ).

In parallel, ad hoc simulation studies and characterization approaches, including in situ and operando have been developed to accelerate the optimization of the deposition processes and device functionality. Finally, in the last years, this has been complemented by the introduction of machine learning and Life cycle analysis with the objective to further accelerate the optimizations and develop greener and more sustainable processes, respectively.

The first goal of this symposium is thus to present the recent developments in the field of Advanced Thin films deposition of functional materials, in particular focusing on Energy and Sustainable applications.

The second objective is to bring together researchers and engineers working on different aspects of thin films deposition to foster interaction, collaborations and eventually the development of innovative concepts and devices. Thirdly to early career researchers including doctoral students to present their research work to an audience with complementary research expertise and in the process initiate networking that will enable them to strengthen their research prospects in the future.

Hot topics to be covered by the symposium:

Papers are solicited on (but not limited to) the following topics:

• New and advanced thin film deposition and/or engineering approaches (area-selective ALD, high-throughput ALD approaches, combinatorial thin film deposition, multi-step film engineering, etc..)
• Energy applications (batteries, supercapacitors, solar cells, energy harvesting, photo-splitting, hydrogen, energy efficiency, …)
• Advanced characterization, including in situ and operando
• Thin film deposition of advanced 2D materials
• LCA of thin film deposition processes and applications
• Machine learning approaches for the deposition of thin films

List of invited speakers:

• Robert Hoye University of Oxford, UK
• Nathanaelle Schneider, IPVF, CNRS, France
• Andrian Carretero, University of Montpellier, France
• Renaud Leturq, List, Luxembourg
• Kornelius Nielsch, IFW Dresden, Germany
• Edgardo Saucedo, Polytechnic University of Catalonia, Spain
• Judith Driscoll, University of Cambridge, UK
• Monica Morales Masis, University of Twente, The Netherlands
• Albert Tarancón, IREC, Spain

List of scientific committee members:

• Anjana Devi, Ruhr University Bochum, Germany
• David Muñoz-Rojas, LMGP, Grenoble INP, CNRS, UGA, France
• Maarit Karppinen, Aalto University, Finland
• Thomas Fix, ICube Laboratory, CNRS and University of Strasbourg, France
• Matthieu Weber, LMGP, Grenoble INP, CNRS, UGA, France
• Mariona Coll, ICMAB, CSIC, UAB, Spain
• Nils Boysen, Fraunhofer-Institut für Mikroelektronische Schaltungen und Systeme IMS, Germany
• David Zanders, ASM, Belgium
• Harish Parala, Ruhr University Bochum, Germany
• Theodoros Dimopoulos, AIT Austrian Institute of Technology GmbH, Austria
• Janez Krc, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
• Anish Philip, Aalto University, Finland

Publication:

Selected contributions will be published in a special issue on ACS AEM.