A technical ALD expert walks into the marketing department

Atomic layer deposition is advanced nanotechnology and as such sometimes difficult to understand for those who do not work with it daily as we at Beneq do. When you are in the middle of advanced technology and chemistry experts all the time, it is easy to get carried away with technical terminology.

Here is a story of what happens when an ALD expert walks into a marketing planning room and starts to discuss a new thin film coating customer case:

– Hi guys, I have a great new ALD application for the webpages.

– Cool, let’s hear it.

– Diffusion barriers for electrodes!

– ???

– You know, like in batteries.

– Ok. What kind of batteries?

– Mostly lithium-ion right now, but the same method applies to other advanced batteries.

– And why would you need a diffusion barrier in them?

– There is corrosion in the electrodes because of side-reactions between the electrode and the electrolyte.

– And this is a problem?

– Yes, of course.

– Can you elaborate a bit?

– When we apply a thin anti-corrosion coating on the electrodes, we can reduce the side-reactions. This significantly decreases the fading of battery capacity caused by repeated charge and unload cycles.

– So you mean the batteries last longer?

– Well…yes.

And there we have it. An ultra-thin ALD anti-corrosion coating on the critical battery parts increases the lifetime of advanced batteries. It has been shown with lithium-ion batteries (which are the most popular kind right now) that ALD coatings on the electrodes can significantly increase the product lifetime of the battery.

Now that is what we call a customer benefit!