An International Symposium on Atomic Layer Epitaxy(ALE), a relatively new subfield of epitaxy, is being held to assess the ALE field, and to establish ties between universities, research institutions, and industry. It is expected that top scientists in the field will attend, and that the symposium will provide an effective forum to discuss and delineate the critical scientific issues in this research area, and to consider and define the approaches and techniques needed to address them. Understanding and controlling processes at the atomic level are becoming increasingly important for electronic and photonic materials, and ALE represents an advantageous way of achieving layer-by-layer control through the self limiting aspects of the process to yield accurate layer thicknesses and uniformity on an atomic scale over wafer-scale dimensions. %%% An evaluation of the status of ALE, and recommendations by the symposium participants for the emphasis of future work, and their assessment of the most important contemporary research issues will be of great value to the understanding and development of the technique of ALE, and for its subsequent utilization in the field of microelectronics.
