LONDON — Imperial Innovations Group plc, the technology commercialization arm of Imperial College here, has announced the closing of a £1.35 million (about $2.7 million) investment in QuantaSol Ltd., a developer quantum-well based photovoltaic technology and spinoff from the college.

Imperial Innovations has invested —300,000 (about $600,000) on a milestone basis in QuantaSol with Low Carbon Accelerator, NetScientific Ltd. and Numis Corporation plc. Following the investment, Imperial Innovations owns a 24 percent stake in the company.

QuantaSol plans to provide solar photovoltaic cells for use in concentrating photovoltaic (CPV) systems for the fast growing utility-scale solar power generation market. The company plans to use the money to produce prototypes of its Quantum Well Photovoltaic (QWPV) cells and to engage with potential customers. CPV systems use mirrors or lenses to concentrate or focus light from a broad collection area onto a much smaller area of active semiconductor cell material. QuantaSol's cells are based on gallium arsenide (GaAs) and other III-V semiconductor materials. These materials are more expensive than silicon, which is commonly used for flat panel PV, but have more than double the photovoltaic efficiency. QuantaSol plans to manufacture single and multi-junction concentrator solar cells with efficiency levels of up to 40 percent.

QuantaSol was formed in 2006 and is based on the research of Professor Keith Barnham, Emeritus Professor of Physics and senior research investigator in the department of physics at Imperial College; Massimo Mazzer, senior researcher of the National Research Council of Italy; and John Roberts, senior research scientist at The University of Sheffield.

"We are very grateful for the support that we have received from Imperial Innovations, and are looking forward to working with them and the rest of the investor group to take QuantaSol forward to become a major global supplier of third generation, high efficiency solar cells," said Kevin Arthur, chief executive officer of QuantaSol, in a statement.