PowerFilm, Inc.
   HOME
*





PowerFilm, Inc.
PowerFilm, Inc. is a manufacturer of flexible thin film solar photovoltaic (PV) modules, or solar panels, based in Ames, Iowa and is a provider of solar products for industrial, consumer and military remote power applications. PowerFilm's amorphous silicon (a-Si) thin-film solar modules are both built into solar charger products as well as sold to OEM integrators. Technology CEO Frank Jeffrey summarizes PowerFilm technology for the podcast interview The Naked Scientists "The principal part of the solar cell itself in our cells is amorphous a silicon, which has an extremely high absorption coefficient so that we can have extremely thin semiconducting material that will still absorb a good portion of light. That thin material, even though if it were thick like a crystalline wafer, it would break, in the same type structure when it’s thin enough becomes flexible and tends to bend rather than break. So, that’s the key part, our basic absorber layer that absorbs the solar energy ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Thin Film Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Modules
Thin may refer to: * a lean body shape. ''(See also: emaciation, underweight)'' * ''Thin'' (film), a 2006 HBO documentary about eating disorders * Paper Thin (other), referring to multiple songs * Thin (web server), a Ruby web-server based on Mongrel *Thin (name) See also * * * Thin client, a computer in a client-server architecture network. * Thin film, a material layer of about 1 μm thickness. * Thin-film deposition, any technique for depositing a thin film of material onto a substrate or onto previously deposited layers * Thin film memory, high-speed variation of core memory developed by Sperry Rand in a government-funded research project * Thin-film optics, the branch of optics that deals with very thin structured layers of different materials * Thin layer chromatography (TLC), a chromatography technique used in chemistry to separate chemical compounds * Thin layers (oceanography), congregations of phytoplankton and zooplankton in the water column ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Solar Panels
A solar cell panel, solar electric panel, photo-voltaic (PV) module, PV panel or solar panel is an assembly of photovoltaic solar cells mounted in a (usually rectangular) frame, and a neatly organised collection of PV panels is called a photovoltaic system or solar array. Solar panels capture sunlight as a source of radiant energy, which is converted into electric energy in the form of direct current (DC) electricity. Arrays of a photovoltaic system can be used to generate solar electricity that supplies electrical equipment directly, or feeds power back into an alternate current (AC) grid via an inverter system. History In 1839, the ability of some materials to create an electrical charge from light exposure was first observed by the French physicist Edmond Becquerel. Though these initial solar panels were too inefficient for even simple electric devices, they were used as an instrument to measure light. The observation by Becquerel was not replicated again until 1873 ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Ames, Iowa
Ames () is a city in Story County, Iowa, United States, located approximately north of Des Moines in central Iowa. It is best known as the home of Iowa State University (ISU), with leading agriculture, design, engineering, and veterinary medicine colleges. A United States Department of Energy national laboratory, Ames Laboratory, is located on the ISU campus. According to the 2020 census, Ames had a population of 66,427, making it the state's ninth largest city. Iowa State University was home to 33,391 students as of fall 2019, which make up approximately one half of the city's population. Ames also hosts United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) sites: the largest federal animal disease center in the United States, the USDA Agricultural Research Service's National Animal Disease Center (NADC), as well as one of two national USDA sites for the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), which comprises the National Veterinary Services Laboratory and the Center for ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Renewable Energy
Renewable energy is energy that is collected from renewable resources that are naturally replenished on a human timescale. It includes sources such as sunlight, wind, the movement of water, and geothermal heat. Although most renewable energy sources are sustainable, some are not. For example, some biomass sources are considered unsustainable at current rates of exploitation. Renewable energy often provides energy for electricity generation to a grid, air and water heating/cooling, and stand-alone power systems. Renewable energy technology projects are typically large-scale, but they are also suited to rural and remote areas and developing countries, where energy is often crucial in human development. Renewable energy is often deployed together with further electrification, which has several benefits: electricity can move heat or objects efficiently, and is clean at the point of consumption. In addition, electrification with renewable energy is more efficient and therefore ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territories, nine Minor Outlying Islands, and 326 Indian reservations. The United States is also in free association with three Pacific Island sovereign states: the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau. It is the world's third-largest country by both land and total area. It shares land borders with Canada to its north and with Mexico to its south and has maritime borders with the Bahamas, Cuba, Russia, and other nations. With a population of over 333 million, it is the most populous country in the Americas and the third most populous in the world. The national capital of the United States is Washington, D.C. and its most populous city and principal financial center is New York City. Paleo-Americ ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Custom Solar Solution] [solar Panels
Custom, customary, or consuetudinary may refer to: Traditions, laws, and religion * Convention (norm), a set of agreed, stipulated or generally accepted rules, norms, standards or criteria, often taking the form of a custom * Norm (social), a rule that is socially enforced * Customary law or consuetudinary, laws and regulations established by common practice * Customary (liturgy) or consuetudinary, a Christian liturgical book describing the adaptation of rites and rules for a particular context * Custom (Catholic canon law), an unwritten law established by repeated practice * Customary international law, an aspect of international law involving the principle of custom * Mores * Tradition * Minhag (pl. minhagim), Jewish customs * ʿUrf (Arabic: العرف), the customs of a given society or culture Import-export * Customs, a tariff on imported or exported goods * Custom house Modification * Modding * Bespoke, anything commissioned to a particular specification * Custom car ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




How It's Made
''How It's Made'' (''Comment c'est fait'' in French) is a Canadian documentary television series that premiered on January 6, 2001, on the Discovery Channel in Canada and the Science Channel in the United States. The program is produced in the Canadian province of Quebec by Productions MAJ, Inc. and Productions MAJ 2. Format The show is a documentary showing how common, everyday items (such as clothing and accessories, food, industrial products, musical instruments, and sporting goods) are manufactured. It also features the restoration processes of old items in some episodes. ''How It's Made'' does not include explanatory texts to simplify dubbing in different languages. The show also avoids having an onscreen host (after Season 1 in the Canadian version) and an interview with employees explaining the process. Instead, an off-screen narrator explains the process, often with humorous puns. Each episode features three or four products divided by segments, with each product ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

IKAROS
IKAROS (Interplanetary Kite-craft Accelerated by Radiation Of the Sun) is a Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) experimental spacecraft. The spacecraft was launched on 20 May 2010, aboard an H-IIA rocket, together with the ''Akatsuki'' (Venus Climate Orbiter) probe and four other small spacecraft. IKAROS is the first spacecraft to successfully demonstrate solar sail technology in interplanetary space. On 8 December 2010, IKAROS flew by Venus at a distance of , successfully completing its planned mission, and entered its extended operation phase. Purpose The IKAROS probe is the world's first spacecraft to use solar sailing as the main propulsion. It was designed to demonstrate four key technologies (comments in parentheses refer to figure): # Deployment and control of a large, thin solar sail membrane (grey-blue areas numbered 3) # Thin-film solar cells integrated into the sail to power the payload (black rectangles numbered 4) # Measurement of acceleration due to radiatio ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency
The is the Japanese national air and space agency. Through the merger of three previously independent organizations, JAXA was formed on 1 October 2003. JAXA is responsible for research, technology development and launch of satellites into orbit, and is involved in many more advanced missions such as asteroid exploration and possible human exploration of the Moon. Its motto is ''One JAXA'' and its corporate slogan is ''Explore to Realize'' (formerly ''Reaching for the skies, exploring space''). History On 1 October 2003, three organizations were merged to form the new JAXA: Japan's Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS), the National Aerospace Laboratory of Japan (NAL), and National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA). JAXA was formed as an Independent Administrative Institution administered by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) and the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC). Before the merger, ISA ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Solar Sail
Solar sails (also known as light sails and photon sails) are a method of spacecraft propulsion using radiation pressure exerted by sunlight on large mirrors. A number of spaceflight missions to test solar propulsion and navigation have been proposed since the 1980s. The first spacecraft to make use of the technology was IKAROS, launched in 2010. A useful analogy to solar sailing may be a sailing boat; the light exerting a force on the mirrors is akin to a sail being blown by the wind. High-energy laser beams could be used as an alternative light source to exert much greater force than would be possible using sunlight, a concept known as beam sailing. Solar sail craft offer the possibility of low-cost operations combined with long operating lifetimes. Since they have few moving parts and use no propellant, they can potentially be used numerous times for delivery of payloads. Solar sails use a phenomenon that has a proven, measured effect on astrodynamics. Solar pressure affec ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]