Ithaca-based Orthogonal wins first place at World's Best Technology Showcase

Ithaca-based Orthogonal, won first place at the annual "World's Best Technology" (WBT) conference this month in Austin, Texas.  The WBTshowcase is the nation's premier event showcasing the largest collection of vetted and mentored companies and technologies emanating from top universities, labs, research institutions, and the private sector from across the country and around the globe. WBT is widely recognized for having the highest quality seed and early stage deals. One in three WBT presenters goes on to secure venture funding, license their technology, or sell their IP outright, representing over $450 million raised to date.began as an idea in early 2002, the WBTshowcase has emerged as the world's largest forum of pre-screened, pre-prepped, undiscovered companies and technologies emanating from top universities, labs, and research institutions from across the country and around the globe. The WBTshowcase represents the collaborative, year-long effort of investors, licensees, and tech commercialization professionals. The WBT is deal-focused and diverse, showcasing companies and technologies that vary by geography, funding source, and type of research institution. Participating technologies are selected by - and presented to - over 100 seasoned venture investors and Fortune 500 licensing scouts representing a variety of industries, each supported by private funding, federal R&D grants or both. Most companies are presenting for the very first time.

Read a great feature story about Orthogonal, which produces organic electronics, at:  
http://blog.syracuse.com/green/2010/03/orthogonal_inc_in_ithaca_works.html

The technology was developed at Cornell, with assistance from The National Science Foundation's Materials World Network program.  A $900,000 grant through 2013 is supporting Cornell scientists who have invented a reliable way of processing organic devices with a patent-pending process called orthogonal lithography.  Up until now, a nanofabrication method called photolithography, in which patterns are transferred into a material coated with a light-sensitive photoresist, has been the technology of choice for such products as flat-panel displays.  But it is not an environmentally friendly way to produce such products.  Orthogonal lithography uses an organic photoresist that is soluble in environmentally safe fluorinated solvents.

"We've identified a family of orthogonal solvents that is very different than water and very different than the non-polar organics -- the solvents usually used in these processes," said Chris Ober, co-leader of the grant with George Malliaras, both Cornell professors of materials science and engineering, and Richard Friend of the University of Cambridge.

The grant will fund the group's continued study of increasingly complex organic devices using orthogonal lithography, and indirectly, the funds may aid job creation at Orthogonal Inc., based in Ithaca, which is commercializing the technology.

Read more about the technology:
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Oct09/ARRAorthogonal.html