Are applied science threads more monopolistic?

We analyze if we can identify applied research through it being more monopolistic than basic research. Focusing on micro-communities within a case technology, the dye-sensitized solar cell, we seek to identify market structures within these communities that correlate with how basic or applied their science is. Combining economic measures of competitiveness with a ranking scheme provided by the National Science Foundation we show that more competitive market structures are more basic - attracting more citations, whereas, more applied R&D tends to be more localized in fewer organizations, presumably with different motivations. These results are useful as we try to identify how a technology emerges to being a commercially viable technology. Although there has been an active discussion if the linear model of technological development holds true - to an extent, we would presume some that there should be applied research prior to commercial application. Identifying the structure of this research enables a more holistic portrait of the landscape of a technology.