Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
Carbon Nanotube Speakers Are Flexible, Transparent
Carbon nanotube speakers have been created; by sending an audio-frequency current through a carbon nanotube thin film, it can be made into a superthin high-performance loudspeaker that emits sound in a wide-frequency range. The carbon nanotube speaker functions without any moving parts or heavy magnets. The video below shows a CNT speaker sewn onto a small, waving flag.
(Nanotube speaker video)
KaiLi Jiang and Shoushan Fan, professors at Tsinghua University in Beijing, and their colleagues at Beijing Normal University, drew out a thin film from CTN arrays and, then, tested the thin film for acoustic properties.
Shoushan Fan explains that when the team passed an alternating current through their CNT thin-film speaker, the film quickly switched back and forth between room temperature and 80°C. These swift temperature changes resulted in pressure oscillations in the air next to the thin-film. Fan reports the team found these thermally-induced pressure oscillations responsible for the sound emitted by the thin-film speaker.He notes that, when fully stretched, the nanotube speaker became transparent, causing the team to envision attaching it to the front of an LCD screen in place of standard speakers. Some of the more “exotic uses” they dreamed up for the speaker, he says, included the possibility stitching it into clothing to create a kind of “singing and speaking jacket.”
CNT flexible speakers could provide the essential ingredient that is missing in talking tape. In his 1998 novel Distraction, Bruce Sterling wrote about how talking tape, one of my favorite pieces of technovelgy, could help construct a building:
Oscar peeled a strip of tape from a yellow spool and wrapped the tape around a cinder block. He swept a hand-scanner over the block, activating the tape..."I'm a cornerstone," the cinder block announced.
"Good for you," Oscar grunted.
(Read more about talking tape)
Update 24-Nov-2008: Ashley found a great precursor to this idea in the works of Keith Laumer. In Diplomat at Arms (1982), his first story featuring the indomitable Retief, we encounter the command microphone:
Retief reached up and adjusted a tiny stud set in the stiff collar of his tunic. He tapped his finger lightly against the cloth. The sound boomed across the arena. A command microphone of the type authorized a Battle Commander was a very effective device...The Master of the Games stared at him aghast. This was getting out of control. Where the devil had the old man gotten a microphone and a PA system. (Read more about Laumer's command microphone)
In the context of the story, it is clear that the fabric of the tunic itself is the loudspeaker. End update.
From Nanotube speakers - the next big thin thing.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 11/22/2008)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 2 )
Related News Stories - (" Material ")
Harvard Metamaterials Change Structure Instantly
'Annealed in any shape for a time, and codified, the structure of that shape is retained down to the molecules.' - Samuel R. Delany
Nano-Chainmail 2D Mechanically Interlocked Polymer
'Nemourlon armor of reasonable weight resists penetration by most fragments and any bullet that is not both reasonably heavy and fairly high-velocity.' - Jerry Pournelle, 1976.
Goldene - A Two-Dimensional Sheet Of Gold One Atom Thick
'Hasan always pitched a Gauzy - a one-molecule-layer tent, opaque, feather-light, and very tough.' - Roger Zelazny, 1966.
GNoME AI From DeepMind Invents Millions Of New Materials
'...the legendary creativity of our finest human authors pales against the mathematical indefatigability of GNoME.'
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
Robotic Barber Programmed With a Number of Styles
'He found a barber shop which, he thought, would be good for an idle hour.'
Humanoid Boxing Robot KO's Opponent - It's A Knockout!
'Thirty rounds of fighting is tough work. Even for machines.'
Caterpillar Electric Mining Loader Not Yet Ready For Moon
'...the excavations were already in progress, for he saw gray slopes of rubble.'
Centipede Robots Down On The Farm
'...the walking mills of Puffy Products began to tread delicately on their centipede legs across the wheat fields of Kansas.'
Anthropic's Claude AI Creates Legal Citation From Whole Cloth
'Here is a Clerk that would work incessantly, and neither eat, sleep, want payment, or grumble.'
Students Vie For Lunar Regolith Mining Robot Prize
'About time you got here,' the astronaut said.
'They Erased My Memory' Says Ariana Grande
'...using a neutralizing electronic impulse.'
Solitary Black Hole Wanders In Space
'...the Hole is something like a vortex or a whirlpool?'
Spaceplane From Virgin Atlantic
'ZARNAK, YOU'RE TO COMMAND A SCOUTING EXPEDITION --- FIND OUT WHAT THIS IS ALL ABOUT!'
DARPA Wants 'Large Bio-Mechanical Space Structures'
'These are your rudimentary seed packages... Some will combine in place to form more complicated structures.'
Robot Hand Creeps Along, Separate From It's Owner
'The crawling... object was V-Stephen's surgeon-hand...'
Taikonauts Exercise In China's Tiangong Space Station
'Joe got out the gravity-simulator harnesses...'
Korean Exoskeleton Suit F1 Helps You Put It On
'Better late than never.'
Have AI Researchers Given Up On 'Bio-Babies'?
'You couldn't have the capstone without the pyramid to hold it up.'
Bunker Busters and Bore-Pellets
'The first revelation of the new Soviet bore-pellets.'
'Spikeless' Brand Swizzle Stick Detects Spiked Drinks
'the unobtrusive inspections with tiny remote-cast snoopers...'
