The atomic-level precision in designing surfaces and nanostructures is quickly making its way from the one-off laboratory investigations into chemical manufacturing. However, in order to make the applications feasible, fundamental understanding of the mechanisms of surface reactions leading to the formation of the desired surface structures is needed. A great deal of progress has been made over the years in uncovering reactions behind atomic layer deposition (ALD), but much more limited information is available about atomic layer etching (ALE), although both processes are often required to build the components of present and future microelectronics.

This talk will highlight recent work on understanding the reactions for metal and metal oxide deposition on functionalized (and patterned) surfaces and on recent advances in ALE of complex materials, specifically focused on tertiary alloys, such as CoFeB, used in magnetic tunnel junctions. I will outline the work needed to understand the mechanisms of these processes that can be further used to improve the control over atomically-precise manufacturing methods and to reduce the use of hazardous procedures. The relatively well-understood ALE procedures that include oxidation or chlorination as the first half-cycle of ALE of such materials and introduction of a bidentate ligands (such as acetylacetonates) to remove complex materials uniformly and with atomic-level control will be extended to describe the potential use of much milder conditions and reagents. A combination of experimental and computational methods will be used to make this analysis possible.