Unidym Inc., a majority-owned subsidiary of Arrowhead Research Corp., has entered an exclusive license agreement with Nano-C for patents covering fullerene derivatives. The license provides Nano-C exclusive rights to U.S. Patent No. 5,739,376 and foreign counterparts in the field of photovoltaics.
In recent years, researchers and companies seeking to commercialize thin-film organic photovoltaic (OPV) solar technologies have focused on using fullerene derivatives as the n-type semiconductor in bulk heterojunction organic solar cells. The use of fullerenes as the electron acceptor and transporter results in higher quantum efficiencies of the cells, according to the companies.
‘The '376 patent family covers many of the fullerene derivatives used in OPV, including the widely used C60 and C70 PCBM compounds,’ notes Viktor Vejins, CEO of Nano-C.
SOURCES: Unidym Inc., Nano-C
