MIT’s wallpaper loudspeaker can cover any surface

A research team from MIT has come up with a thin-film loudspeaker that can be mounted on any reasonably flat surface and turn it into an audio source. Consisting of a piezoelectric material sandwiched in between plastic and embossed with an array of microdomes, the device emits high-quality sound while using a fraction of the energy that a traditional sound system would use, the researchers claim. As a bonus, the ‘wallpaper loudspeaker’ can be manufactured with a roll-to-roll process.

“It feels remarkable to take what looks like a slender sheet of paper, attach two clips to it, plug it into the headphone port of your computer and start hearing sounds emanating from it. It can be used anywhere. One just needs a smidgeon of electrical power to run it,” says Vladimir Bulović, leader of the Organic and Nanostructured Electronics Laboratory and senior author of the paper detailing the loudspeaker, published in IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics.