Carbon Nanotube Loudspeakers

Carbon nanotubes (CNT) are one of the new, emerging technologies for which more and more applications are being discovered and they seem to be one of the things we'll hear about even more in the future. Even though their existence has been discovered some 10 years ago, it is only recently that they have been more thoroughly known and their synthesis further developed. And speaking of the new uses for CNT, here's one with a very serious potential: loudspeakers.

 

Kaili Jiang is a physicist at the Tsinghua-Foxconn Nanotechnology Research Centre in Beijing and leader of a research team that managed to create loudspeaker-like structures from stretchable, flexible and transparent CNT sheets.

 

The result is a very special cloth-like texture that can bend and can be tailored in almost any size and shape – and when electric current alternating at an audio frequency is applied to this structure, it will resonate pretty much like your traditional loudspeakers. These CNT films can be easily attached to virtually anything and they can serve as sound sources in the most unbelievable places, being especially useful in locations where normal loudspeakers would be impracticable to mount.

 

A most interesting feature when it comes to CNT speakers is the way they produce sound: if a traditional loudspeaker generates sound by vibrating the cone back and forth, the nanotubes produce sound waves in the same manner the lightning produces thunder. As the current passes through them they heat up and expand the surround air, producing a sonic result; and unlike thunders, which are generated in an utterly uncontrolled way, the CNT physics is able to control this process quite closely.

 

Now, it's just a matter of time before this groundbreaking loudspeaker technology will be perfected and we're quite anxious to see it implemented in clothing and many other places yet to be discovered. The number of possible applications for the CNT "loudspeaker cloth" is constantly growing, taking into account that it retains the basic properties when stretched up to twice the normal size. For more info on the CNT "loudspeaker cloth" you can access this page.

 

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