Southwall Technologies Inc.

Christian Herman Stoessel

Richard Thomas Wipfler

Lee Campbell Boman

Julius G Kozak

Roland Claus Thielsch

Ronny Kleinhempel

Anthony Brian Port

Kayur Ashwin Patel

Vonn Sawatzky

Tom Engbersen

Mark Cargill

Carlos Salinas, Jr

Lee C Boman

An electroactive package is disclosed that includes an active film and a pair of transparent conductive layers positioned on opposite sides of the active film. The transparent conductive layers each include an overhang section that extends beyond an edge of the active film, with the overhang sections being located at a periphery of the electroactive package. A bus bar is disclosed that comprises a pair of electrically-conductive layers and an insulative layer positioned between the electrically-conductive layers. The bus bar extends along at least a portion of the periphery of the electroactive package and is positioned between the overhang sections of the transparent conductive layers. Also disclosed are electroactive windows, and methods of making them.

Electroactive device provided with a trilayer bus bar

A method of automatically mounting a sheet from a cutting table onto a spacer frame of an insulating glass unit begins with identifying a position and orientation of a specified sheet on the cutting table and moving a robotic sheet pickup apparatus to a corresponding position to that identified for the sheet. An edge of the specified sheet is lifted off of the table, beginning with mechanical suction that brings a corner of the sheet to within proximity of a primary vacuum suction of the pickup apparatus. In particular, the pickup apparatus may have a substantially planar platen with a set of channels coupled to a vacuum source. Once the sheet is fully picked up by vacuum suction, the sheet is laid upon a top surface of a tilt table, which can be simply the platen inverted. The table (or platen) is tilted to bring a corner of the sheet to abut against physical fences. Once the position and orientation of the sheet is so known, the sheet is oriented to correspond to a frame, and attached thereto.

Automated film pickup and placement method for insulating glass units

A low-e insulating glass unit has a suspended, coated IR reflecting polymer sheet under tension, e.g. from heat shrinkage. The polymer sheet is coated with a multilayer stack of dielectric and metallic layers, including at least one silver layer deposited upon a zinc oxide seed layer that is at most 15 nm thickness. The use of zinc oxide ensures good seeding for high quality silver layer growth, thereby providing low emissivity. The thinness of the zinc oxide ensures that it resists cracking when the polymer sheet is tensioned.

Insulating glass unit with crack-resistant low-emissivity suspended film

Growing community of inventors

Santa Rosa, CA, United States of America

Christian Herman Stoessel