Researchers from Michigan Technological University have demonstrated a carbon nanotube loudspeaker powered by heat. Troy Bouman and Masha Asgarisabet, graduate students, scooped a Best in Show Award at SAE International's Noise and Vibration Conference and Exhibition when they showed off the transducer and presented their acoustic research on carbon nanotube speakers.
The pair worked with Andrew Barnard, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Michigan Tech, to create an intelligible device.
“Traditional speakers use a moving coil, and that’s how they create sound waves,” Bouman told Michigan Tech News. “There are completely different physics behind carbon nanotube speakers."
Carbon nanotube speakers were discovered in 2008 and
InAVate reported on a breakthrough at Tsinghua University in Beijing in November of that year. This research aims to refine that technology.
Asgarisabet is working on active noise control and considers carbon nanotube film as a potential way to cancel out engine noise in planes or road noise in cars.