Two Michigan Tech graduate students have developed a way to produce sounds through a loudspeaker using heat.
It’s called a carbon nanotube transducer and Tech’s Troy Bouman says it’s the first of its kind.
Tech Today reports that Bouman and fellow Tech graduate student Mahsa Asgarisabet recently won a Best of Show Award at SAE International’s Noise and Vibration Conference and Exhibition 2015 for their acoustic research on carbon nanotube speakers.
The speakers are very light weight and Asgarisabet explains why that is.
The technology is still in its very early stages but the potential applications are nearly endless.
Uses include everything from de-icing helicopter blades to making lighter loudspeakers to doubling as a car speaker and heating filament for back windshield defrosters.