PASADENA, Calif. — Arrowhead Research Corporation (NASDAQ ARWR) [profile] announced that UCLA [profile] Professor of Physics, Dr. George Gruner, a founder and technical consultant to its majority-owned subsidiary, Unidym, Inc., will present “Carbon for Printed Electronics” at Printed Electronics Europe 07 on Wednesday, April 18. In addition, Unidym is a finalist for an industry award to be presented at the conference for the “Most Significant Technological Development”, along with Merck [profile] and Plextronics.
“Dr. Gruner will present the outstanding progress made by the Unidym team in developing its products,” said R. Bruce Stewart, Arrowhead’s Chairman & CEO. “This progress, as well as the recently announced merger between Unidym and Carbon Nanotechnologies, Inc., positions the company as a major player in the field of printable electronics.”
Unidym is developing carbon nanotube-based products for the electronics industry. The company’s first product is a transparent electrode that is intended to replace the indium tin oxide (ITO) electrodes in products such as flat-panel displays used in televisions, laptop computers, mobile phones and touch screens, solar cells, and solid state lighting. The total existing market for this product is approximately $1 billion. Unidym has already provided samples to potential customers in each of its target industries. Unidym’s second product is a carbon nanotube-based thin film transistor (TFT) intended for the emerging flexible (also known as printable) electronics industry, with markets projected to reach in excess of $20 billion.
CNI was founded in 2000 by the late Rice University professor Richard Smalley who received the Nobel Prize for his work in carbon nanotubes. His pioneering work led to a suite of patents that covers technologies being used today to develop nanotube-based products. CNI has more than 100 patents (including 54 issued U.S. patents) and patent applications covering compositions of matter, methods of manufacturing, processing and products incorporating carbon nanotubes, with over 5000 claims in various stages of prosecution.
The combined company will continue to develop products internally and with industry partners and as well as an out licensing program.
