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The Kurt J. Lesker Company and Penn State University have launched the Kurt J. Lesker Company Atomic Scale Processing Center of Excellence (ASPIRE), housed in Penn State's Nanofabrication Laboratory at the Millennium Science Complex. ASPIRE pairs KJLC's atomic layer deposition (ALD) and atomic layer etching (ALE) equipment with Penn State's research and characterization infrastructure to develop and validate atomic-scale processing recipes for semiconductor, quantum, photonic, and advanced packaging technologies recipes that will ultimately be shared with KJLC customers and academic researchers.

As interest in Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition (PECVD) and Diamond-Like Carbon (DLC) coatings continues to grow across manufacturing industries, companies are looking for partners they can trust to support both their current needs and future production goals. KDF Technologies, a Kurt J. Lesker Company subsidiary, is carrying forward the VaporTech^® coating legacy as the sole licensed and exclusive supplier of the PVD coating machines formerly manufactured by Vapor Technologies, Inc. (VaporTech^®). This ensures customers continue to have access to the proven technology, performance, and reliability that made these systems a trusted choice throughout the industry.

The Kurt J. Lesker Company is pleased to announce that its subsidiary, KDF Technologies, has entered into an agreement that enables KDF Technologies to provide ongoing support, service, replacement parts, and technology solutions for VaporTech physical vapor deposition (PVD) systems.

From high-purity thin films to functional ferroelectrics in 3D architectures.

As semiconductor devices continue to evolve toward atomic-scale dimensions and complex 3D architectures, the requirements placed on materials are becoming increasingly stringent. Thin films must not only be conformal and uniform—they must also deliver functional properties at the atomic level, with impurity concentrations reduced to near-zero.

The Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST), located in Okinawa, Japan, is known for its interdisciplinary approach to research and its investment in advanced scientific infrastructure. From nanofabrication to materials characterization, OIST's core facilities are designed to support researchers as they push the boundaries of discovery.

Behind every successful research facility is more than just advanced science, it's a foundation built on intentional space planning, reliable tools, and trust in the systems that support them.

A recent research feature, Building Space, Tools, and Trust, highlights how long term investment in cleanroom infrastructure and tool ecosystems enables institutions to grow their research capabilities while maintaining consistency, access, and reliability.

In the evolving landscape of advanced materials discovery and thin film device fabrication, precision and repeatability are critical to innovation. One widely adopted method for patterning and selective deposition is the use of shadow masks—physical stencils that define regions on a substrate where material is deposited. While this approach enables rapid prototyping, device isolation, and high-throughput fabrication, it also introduces challenges in mask alignment, resolution control, and system contamination—especially when used in combinatorial materials science.

Plasma processes, especially reactive magnetron sputtering, have become foundational in the production of advanced thin film coatings across industries ranging from microelectronics to optics and energy. Yet, the inherent complexity and dynamism of plasma environments present significant challenges for process stability, film quality, film reproducibility, and throughput. Plasma Emission Monitoring (PEM) has emerged as a transformative analytical and control technique, enabling precise regulation of plasma chemistry during deposition. This article explores the principles, challenges, and industrial impact of this real-time, in situ characterization method for reactive magnetron sputtering.

Metallic coatings deposited using the KDF Enhanced Rotating Planetary Pallet (ERPP) exhibit exceptionally high film uniformity and tight process repeatability. This performance is driven by the synergistic effect of the concomitance of the planetary revolution and the system's standard linear scanning mode. KDF Technologies has developed both reactive and non-reactive sputtering processes for metallic, semi-metallic, semiconductor, and dielectric materials. These processes consistently achieve film uniformity better than ±1% across the pallet, with repeatability exceeding ±0.5% from pallet to pallet. With this capability, we ensure high-performance processing of multilayer conductive barriers and contact materials essential for integrated circuits, in addition to delivering premium titanium tungsten films for adhesion and diffusion applications in both microelectronics and decorative technologies. Furthermore, the flexible programmability of the rotating motion will be examined in the context of its impact on improving deposition uniformity and tailoring surface morphology. With the ongoing evolution of thin-film device applications, deposition tools must meet progressively tighter specifications, delivering superior film uniformity and process repeatability to support next-generation performance.

As semiconductor and microelectronic devices evolve, requiring atomic-scale manufacturing precision, the purity constraints on materials become extreme. At the 2nm node in semiconductor development, line widths are on the order of 40 atoms! Among the more interesting materials is the ferroelectric material aluminum scandium nitride (AlScN), a wurtzite-structured, solid solution material that combines the superior piezoelectric properties of AlN with the ferroelectric behavior introduced through scandium doping. AlScN has demonstrated breakthrough potential for nonvolatile memory, energy harvesting, microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), Rf filters, and optical devices. All of the applications require conformal, ultra-pure thin films with atomic-level precision.