Speakers work by vibrating a membrane to manipulate air and create sound waves. Now, engineers at MIT have developed mountable paper-thin speakers that can produce sound from any surface. The creators say that the speakers should be easy to produce at a large scale. Additionally, they are energy efficient, so they won’t need a lot of power to run.
Overcoming the problems with mountable paper-thin speakers
Speakers in headphones and other tech use electrical currents and magnetic fields to produce sound waves using the method I outlined above. In recent years, though, engineers have managed to find ways to achieve similar results with designs that are less bulky. This has led to improved audio systems in phones, TVs, and other devices. We’ve even seen some instances of mountable paper-thin speakers, too.
Most of these paper-thin speakers use piezoelectric material. This material produces sound waves when a small voltage is applied to it. As I mentioned before, this material has been at the forefront of developing thinner speakers in phones and other devices.
The downside to these thinner speakers, though, is that mounting them to a surface will reduce their ability to vibrate. In turn, this reduces their ability to produce sound waves. That was one of the primary problems the engineers wanted to overcome with these new mountable paper-thin speakers.