Nanoco completes $2m order

NANOCO, the high-tech manufacturer of quantum dots, which are used by  the makers of the latest home entertainment and lighting products, has completed a $2m order for a Japanese company.

The Manchester University spin-out-company said that it has successfully produced a 1kg batch of green cadmium-free quantum dots for a major Japanese corporation, triggering a $2m payment.

The group, which has just over 60 employees at its Manchester base and production facility in Runcorn, supplied a 1kg batch of red quantum dots to the same Japanese corporation last year, also attracting a $2m payment. 

However, production of the green dots marks another major technical achievement by Nanoco because green dots are significantly more challenging than red ones due to their smaller size.

The Japanese corporation is planning on developing a range of LED applications that incorporate Nanoco’s red and green quantum dots including the backlighting of LCD displays and LED-based general lighting.

Michael Edelman, Nanoco’s chief executive, said:  “It is the first time that we have produced green quantum dots on this scale, marking a particular technical achievement as green dots are just a few nanometers in diameter – about half the size of red ones. We now look to forward to the customer progressing to the launch of quantum dot LEDs, and to our on-going supply of quantum dots.”