Suramya's Blog : Welcome to my crazy life…

April 27, 2022

MIT’s Ultra-thin speakers can be used to make any surface into a low-power, high-quality audio source

Filed under: Computer Hardware,Emerging Tech,Tech Related — Suramya @ 9:51 PM

Noise Cancellation is one of those things that initially we think that we don’t need but once you start using it, it becomes indispensable. I got my first set of noise canceling headsets back in 2002-2003 when I had a coworker who was extremely loud and would insist on sharing their thoughts in a very loud voice. The cherry on top was that a lot of what they said was wrong and it would grab my attention. I would be peacefully working then I would hear something and be like did they just make this statement? In short it was very distracting. So I got a noise canceling headset and was able to ignore them. Since then I have ensured that I always have my noise canceling headsets handy both at work and while traveling.

But you can’t install noise canceling everywhere (at least not cheaply). I have been fortunate that most of the places I have stayed at I didn’t have the problem of loud neighbors but others are not as fortunate. Loud neighbors are one of the major problems in urban life. Which is why I love this new invention by the folks over at MIT that allows you to convert your entire wall into a noise cancelling surface by putting ultra-thin speakers as a wallpaper in your room. These speakers are very thin & use very little power (100 milliwatts of electricity to power a single square meter).

their design relies on tiny domes on a thin layer of piezoelectric material which each vibrate individually. These domes, each only a few hair-widths across, are surrounded by spacer layers on the top and bottom of the film that protect them from the mounting surface while still enabling them to vibrate freely. The same spacer layers protect the domes from abrasion and impact during day-to-day handling, enhancing the loudspeaker’s durability.

To build the loudspeaker, the researchers used a laser to cut tiny holes into a thin sheet of PET, which is a type of lightweight plastic. They laminated the underside of that perforated PET layer with a very thin film (as thin as 8 microns) of piezoelectric material, called PVDF. Then they applied vacuum above the bonded sheets and a heat source, at 80 degrees Celsius, underneath them.

Because the PVDF layer is so thin, the pressure difference created by the vacuum and heat source caused it to bulge. The PVDF can’t force its way through the PET layer, so tiny domes protrude in areas where they aren’t blocked by PET. These protrusions self-align with the holes in the PET layer. The researchers then laminate the other side of the PVDF with another PET layer to act as a spacer between the domes and the bonding surface.

The applications are endless for this technology. They can be used to soundproof apartments, planes, cars etc. They can be used to create 3D immersive experiences cheaply without having to install gigantic speakers. They could also be used in phones and other devices to play sound/music. Since they are paper-thin, we can apply them as a wallpaper in a room that can be removed when moving out, which would allow renters to install them in the apartments.

The work is still in its early stages but it looks very promising.

Source: Gizmodo: Cover Your Wall in MIT’s New Paper Thin Speakers to Turn Your Bedroom Into a Noise Cancelling Oasis

– Suramya

No Comments »

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL

Leave a comment

Powered by WordPress