Advanced thin films for electronics and opto-electronic´s by atomic layer epitaxy

Atomic Layer Epitaxy (ALE) is a novel thin film deposition technique utilizing gaseous precursors and chemical reactions. It can be considered as a variant of the well-established CVD method but through its inherent surface control ALE offers several attractive features for micro- and nanotechnology. These include excellent conformality, sharp interfaces and accurate thickness control. The principle and practice of ALE are described from the point of view of materials and applications and its present and future potential is discussed