Eco-Friendly Technologies: Low-Cost and Low-Toxicity Thin Film Deposition‎

Dear Colleagues,

We live in a fascinating era of extremely rapid technological evolution. A countless number of new devices appear every year, which are cheaper and at the same time more powerful and efficient than their predecessors. For more than 50 years, the electronics industry has been developing in accordance with the well-known Moore’s law with the number of transistors per chip doubling every 2 years. The physical limits of transistor size and defect density have almost been achieved and even are about to be extended. Despite the never-ending race for efficiency, the developed societies are becoming more and more concerned about the impact of technological progress and conveniences on the environment and human health. Many measures have been already taken to reduce the use of hazardous materials in the processing as well as the production costs. Since the majority of the manufacturing steps in the electronics industry involve different kinds of thin-film deposition, there is a strong need for finding solutions to overcome the remaining health and environmental issues associated with thin-film technologies.

Here, we kindly invite authors to contribute to our new Special Issue, “Eco-Friendly Technologies: Low-Cost and Low-Toxicity Thin Film Deposition”, devoted to recent advances in the development of strategies for low-toxicity and/or low-energy processing being able to reduce raw material waste and emission of toxic agents during device manufacturing and after the disposal or abandonment. Research may cover (but is not limited to) any of the processing stages, such as formation of substrates, contacts, and interconnections; active layers in electronic devices (e.g., solar cells, FETs, LEDs, sensors); and other applications such as thin-film batteries and coatings.

Dr. Valentina Belova
Guest Editor

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