ALE makes use of the fact that the incoming material is bound strongly until all sites available for chemisorption are occupied.
[3][4] Dr. Suntola's purpose was to grow thin films of Zinc sulfide to fabricate electroluminescent flat panel displays.
The main trick used for this technique is the use of a self-limiting chemical reaction to control in an accurate way the thickness of the film deposited.
Since the early days, ALE (ALD) has grown to a global thin film technology[5] which has enabled the continuation of Moore's law.
Thus the film thickness is controlled by the number of precursor cycles rather than the deposition time as is the case for conventional CVD processes.