A New Patent for Dr. Mihai Scarlete

Dr. Mihai Scarlete of the Department of Chemistry and his collaborator Dr. Çetin Aktik of the Université de Sherbrooke’s Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science have obtained a U.S. patent for an invention entitled “Solid Source and Method for the Synthesis of Silicon-Containing Precursors for Chemical Vapor Deposition”. This patent for a project related to the construction of solar cells consists of an update to a previous patent that led to the creation of a first spin-off company, Sixtron Advanced Materials. Funding from this first patent had initially allowed Bishop’s University’s clean room to be built in the Johnson Building.

Over the past six years, Drs. Scarlete and Aktik have worked to improve the process that led to the creation of Sixtron in order to bring it up to today’s industrial standards. The researchers are very proud to state that their product now exceeds industry standards by 10%. Their proof of concept has now been approved, and they will now work to scale their project up to the pilot phase.