State-owned nanotechnologies development company Rusnano is to enter the project of Monocrystal on expansion of production of sapphires and sapphire plates for light-diode industry and invest $40.5m in it, news agency RIA Novosti reports citing the company’s press-service.

“The technology used for products manufacturing allows to achieve unique consumer properties bringing demand from such famous light diode products manufacturers like Epistar, LG, Seoul Optodevice, Optogan and others,” Sergey Polikarpov, the managing director of Rusnano, said.

The project implies expansion of industrial production of monocrystal sapphire cylinders – pieces for producing sapphire bases, sapphire bases themselves, that are used in optics- and microelectronics for growing on them layers from gallium nitride, silicon and other materials.

Besides that, the complex is also to produce silver-containing and aluminum composition passed for metalizing silicon solar elements.

In 2010 the share of Monocrystal at the global market of sapphires is about 25%, and the share at the market of aluminum pastes is about 15%.

The monocrystal synthetic sapphires are used in electronics, optics, machine and instrument building, medicine, production of “unscratchable” clock glasses of various shapes, as well as for production of blue semi-conducting lasers, specifically, players of Blue-Ray format.

The sapphire is the main material for production of light diodes, since its crystal lattice allows to grow a layer of gallium nitride with proper working properties.

Rusnano was founded in March 2011 through reorganization of the Russian state nanotechnologies corporation. 100% shares in the company are owned by the state.

Stavropol’s Monocrystal is a part of Energomera concern, owned by Vladimir Polyakov.