Glo AB of Lund, Sweden, which provides light source solutions for displays, illumination, and automotive sectors using its proprietary nanowire-based LED (nLED) technology, has been named as one of Europe’s five Cleantech Companies of the Decade by the Cleantech Group (CTG), which helps clients to accelerate sustainable innovation. CTG’s i3 market intelligence platform (which tracks over $7bn of deal flow annually across 23,000+ cleantech companies) allows subscribers to find, vet, and connect with entrepreneurs, while its Advisory Services leverage expertise in designing and executing corporate strategies for sustainable growth and innovation sourcing. The one-off award was made in connection with the 10th anniversary of Cleantech Forum Europe, held this year in Stockholm’s City Hall (the venue of the annual Nobel Prize ceremony).
Glo was spun off from Lund University’s Nanometer Structure Consortium (nmC) in September 2005 to commercialize LEDs using the proprietary heterostructured semiconductor nanowire technology research of the team of Solid State Physics professor & nmC head Lars Samuelson (Glo’s chief scientific officer). Specifically, Glo develops nanowire LEDs (nLEDs) based on non-polar m-plane gallium nitride materials. By using readily available, low-cost and large-area silicon substrates with mass-production-friendly technologies, the LEDs can emit at brightness levels suitable for general illumination applications and with performance equal to or better than existing state-of-the-art planar chips, yet at much lower manufacturing cost at the die level, it is claimed. Glo controls a portfolio of patents and patent applications covering innovations in nanowire epitaxial growth and process technologies made by the Lund team and by Glo itself. The firm says that nLED technology sidesteps the limitations of the common planar LEDs, offering high-efficiency, stable red, green and blue emitters using a single material system. With a 60-person R&D and operations facility at Glo-USA Inc in Sunnyvale, CA, the company is focused on delivering color stability with high color rendering without the need for phosphor conversion, all using standard manufacturing equipment and materials.
“This is a great acknowledgement of the significance of our advanced technology and its potential to be a game-changer in the area of LED solutions for display as well as lighting applications,” says Samuelson.
“We set out to select private companies that got started and have achieved impressive results in the timeframe since we first conceived of a Cleantech Forum Europe,” says CTG’s CEO Sheeraz Haji. “We sought companies whose stories are illustrative of the collective journey we have all been on, and whose promise for 2014 and beyond is exciting and speaks to the sustainable innovation opportunities in front of us,” he adds.
"We selected Glo — a 2013 Global Cleantech 100 company — because it represents the energy-efficiency opportunity, as well as the quality of Europe’s science base as a lever for more start-ups in the future,” explains Richard Youngman, managing director Europe & Asia at CTG. “All the indicators and information we are privy to suggest a very bright future for Glo."
