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You can resign yourself to using a pair of headphones all day to block out the sounds of noisy neighbors or other distractions, however, MIT researchers have developed a thin, paper-like speaker that can be implemented on almost any surface such as wallpaper, rotating items. like walls on giant noise-canceling speakers.
Tear the speakers of almost each and every customer device that produces sound and necessarily locate the same hardware: a membrane paired with a coil of wire that produces a magnetic box (or other movement mechanism). When electrical energy is applied, the membrane recedes. and go ahead and push the air in fast patterns, creating sound waves that reach our ears. It’s an undeniable formula that has worked well for over 150 years, but it requires some strength and space to work with. Just take a look at the tower of large speakers in any aspect of the level at a concert and see why there is room for improvement when it comes to speaker technology.
Researchers at MIT’s Laboratory of Organic and Nanostructured Electronics have created a new type of thin-film speaker that is as thin and flexible as a sheet of paper, but is also capable of generating clear, high-quality sound, even when glued to an inflexible surface. like a wall. It’s the first time researchers have created ultra-thin, lightweight speakers, but previous attempts resulted in a film that wants to be independent and hassle-free in producing sound. When fixed on an inflexible surface, the ability of older thin speakers to vibrate and move air is particularly reduced, restricting where and how they can be used. But MIT RESEARCHERS have now developed a new production procedure that solves this problem.
Instead of designing a thin-film speaker that requires the entire panel to vibrate, the researchers started with a lightweight PET plastic sheet to which they drilled small holes with a laser. Then a layer of thin piezoelectric curtains called PVDF was laminated at the bottom. of the leaf, and then the researchers subjected any of the layers to a vacuum and heat of 80 degrees Celsius, which caused the piezoelectric layer to swell and push through the laser-cut holes in the most sensitive layer. This has created a series of tiny domes capable of pulsating and vibrating when an electric current is applied, whether or not the panel is glued to an inflexible surface. The researchers also added a few more layers of durable PET plastic to create a spacer that ensures the domes can vibrate freely and protect them from abrasion damage.
The domes measure only “one-sixth the thickness of a human hair” in height and move only a part of a micron up and down when vibrating. It takes thousands to produce audible sounds, however, the researchers also found that converting the laser cutting length holes, which also adjusts the length of the domes produced, allows the sound produced through the thin-film panel to be adjusted to be stronger. Because the domes have such a tiny movement, it only took a hundred milliwatts of electrical power to force a single person. square meter of material, more than a watt of electrical energy needed to force a popular speaker to create a comparable point of sound pressure.
Thin film curtain programs for speakers are endless. In addition to being implemented indoors as workplace walls or even inside an airplane to cancel out unwanted noises, an entire car can simply wrap itself in a speaker, making it less difficult to alert pedestrians. as a silent electric vehicle otherwise approaches. The generation’s researchers can even be used for ultrasound imaging, tracking people’s movements in a given space, or even as a futuristic demonstration generation by covering all those tiny domes with reflective surfaces, similar to how Texas Instrument’s DLP generation works. But the only thing researchers can’t wait for is when we can actually see this generation hit the market.
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