PowerFilm, Inc.
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| Public company (: ) | |
| Industry | Renewable Energy |
| Founded | 1988 (as Iowa Thin Film Technologies Inc.) |
| Founder | Dr. Frank Jeffrey Dr. Derrick Grimmer |
| Headquarters | U.S. |
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Key people
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Dr. Frank Jeffrey, (Chairman, CEO, President) Linda Borst (CFO) Pat Rundall (VP Operations) Brad Scandrett (VP Engineering) |
| Products | solar panels |
| Revenue |
 US $10,333,926 (2012) |
 US -$701,802 (2012) |
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| Website | www.powerfilmsolar.com |
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Footnotes / references |
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PowerFilm, Inc. is an American manufacturer of flexible thin film solar photovoltaic (PV) modules, or solar panels, based in Ames, Iowa and is a provider of custom 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 in a variety form factors.
Footnotes / references
Financials from PowerFilm 2012 Annual Report
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 is only say, 5,000 angstroms thick. So it’s quite thin and flexible and we put it on a thin film plastic substrate that is also flexible and adds mechanical support and strength to the solar component." Materials used in thin film absorb more light than traditional silicon cells and therefore can be made much thinner than crystalline cells (1 vs. 200 micrometres)
Season 13 Episode 1 (4/2/15) of How It's Made shows the manufacture of the PowerFilm panels.
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