Engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have designed and built working prototypes of a paper-thin loudspeaker that can turn any surface into a “high-quality, active audio source,” according to a report in
MIT News. Unlike other thin-membrane speaker designs that Audioholics readers may be familiar with, such as electrostatic (MartinLogan) and planar magnetic (Magnepan) speakers, this new design out of MIT does not require external stators or magnets — the thin film is itself a self-contained loudspeaker that produces sound with “minimal distortion,” while requiring far less energy than a traditional speaker. The team of researchers working on the project presented a working prototype roughly the size of a human hand, weighing just over 2 grams. The speaker can reportedly be bonded to any type of surface, effectively turning that surface into a speaker. The team pioneered a three-step fabrication technique that is both simple and scalable, theoretically allowing the production of paper-thin loudspeakers large enough to wallpaper a room or line the cabin of a car or other vehicle.
What does this mean for the future of loudspeakers and applications?
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Read: MIT Develops Entirely New Paper Thin Loudspeaker