Ecoark Holdings has announced its subsidiary Magnolia Solar, Inc. has recently been awarded a new U.S. patent by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

The U.S. Patent No 9,543,456 issued on January 10, 2017 relates to the development of "Multijunction Solar Cell Employing Extended Heterojunction and Step Graded Antireflection Structures and Methods of constructing the same."

Magnolia Solar is actively working on the development of flexible, lightweight, high-efficiency solar cell technologies for a wide range of portable power applications. Magnolia Solar's technology portfolio includes nanostructured antireflection coatings, advanced thin-film photovoltaic absorber structures, and novel, low-cost manufacturing processes.

Thin-film solar cells are an attractive source of portable and mobile power, as they can be integrated into flexible, lightweight photovoltaic modules that can operate in both terrestrial and space environments.

Magnolia Solar has approximately 15 additional patent applications that are at various stages of review at the U.S. Patent Office. Magnolia Solar, Inc. is the assignee of six U.S. Patents.

These issued patents describe and protect Magnolia's innovations in the field of high-performance, lightweight flexible solar cells for photovoltaic applications, and expands the intellectual property portfolio to these issued patents.

"We have been aggressively pursuing more than a dozen U.S. patent applications as a means to protect our intellectual property in the field of flexible photovoltaics and nanostructured Antireflection Coating technologies," said Dr. Ashok K. Sood, President of Magnolia Solar.

"These patents pertain to novel device structures for increasing the efficiency of lightweight, high-performance thin-film solar cells. These novel structures employ nanostructured absorbers and leverage optical light trapping mechanisms to increase the current output of thin-film solar cells."

"We are proud of the work of Dr. Sood and the team at Magnolia Solar, and for the tremendous accomplishment that the issuance of this new U.S. patent represents," said Randy May, Chairman and CEO, Ecoark Holdings, Inc.

"There is significant opportunity within the solar industry as end users search for more efficient technologies, and we will continue to build our technologies to meet those needs and further penetrate the market moving forward."