Opportunities for Atomic Layer Deposition in Emerging Energy Technologies

Abstract

The demand for new and more efficient energy technologies has motivated the need to design and construct materials at the nanoscale. Because it allows for the synthesis of materials with atomic-level control over nanostructure and composition, atomic layer deposition (ALD) will play an important role in the realization of precise nanoscale design. In this Perspective, we highlight successful uses of ALD toward improving the performance of materials for energy capture, storage, and consumption. We identify five roles that ALD can play in the synthesis and study of energy technologies: fabrication of active materials, modification of surface properties, deposition of barrier and encapsulation layers, synthesis of intricate nanostructures, and elucidation of fundamental material–property relations. Moreover, we offer our perspective on how ALD will fit into the future study, design, and fabrication of nanomaterials for sustainable energy technologies.

Atomic/molecular layer deposition and electrochemical performance of dilithium 2-aminoterephthalate

“…8,9 The ALD/MLD technique for metalorganics is a strongly emerging branch of the conventional atomic layer deposition (ALD) technology for inorganic thin films, which has been in industrial use already for decades. 10,11 Like ALD, the combined ALD/MLD technique for metal-organic thin films is based on sequential, self-saturating surface reactions of gaseous precursors and has the capacity to yield thin films with incontestable thickness control and uniformity. 12 The recent developments in the field of ALD/MLD have opened new avenues towards new interesting metal-organic materials.…”

Atomic layer deposition for quantum dots based devices

“…As an atomic scale controllable surface treatment technique, atomic layer deposition (ALD) meets the above requirements of QDs based device fabrications and has been successfully used in the modification of QDs and QDs-based devices 34,35 . ALD is a gas phase deposition method relying on a sequence of self-limiting surface reaction steps to deposit ultrathin, uniform and conformal films 36 .…”

Saturation profile based conformality analysis for atomic layer deposition: aluminum oxide in lateral high-aspect-ratio channels

“…1,2 Conformal coatings are required in the fabrication of state-ofthe-art and future electronics, [2][3][4] as well as in various applications related to heterogeneous catalysts, [5][6][7][8] biosensors, 9 and energy industries. 10,11 Atomic layer deposition (ALD), [12][13][14][15] a variant of chemical vapor deposition (CVD), was invented independently over forty years ago under the names atomic layer epitaxy [16][17][18][19] and molecular layering. [20][21][22] The Millennium Technology Prize was awarded to ALD's Finnish inventor, Tuomo Suntola in 2018.…”