Future of Engineering

Microphones and speakers have used piezoelectric materials such as quartz to convert incoming electricity to sound, but they are brittle, bulky and expensive.

This hasn't deterred Michael Yu, at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Along with his colleagues he has created a rubbery plastic-based material that makes the piezoelectric devices lightweight and flexible.





By adding silicone rubber to the material that is based on a polypropylene foam with piezoelectric properties, Yu and colleagues have made it possible to separately control the material's piezoelectric mechanical properties. Experimenting with the piezoelectric material wasn't easy. For any change in the flexibility of the material would impact its electrical properties.

But this new material overcomes these problems and has paved the way for novel uses of piezoelectric devices. In the future we'd have wallpapers that would function as speakers, shirts that can harvest energy, and speakers that can be folded.

Surely piezoelectronics seem to be highly innovative. Further research and optimisation would make it more commercially viable.

Source - New Scientist