New Headphones Generate Sound With Carbon Nanotubes

MTorrice writes "A new type of headphone heats up carbon nanotubes to crank out tunes. The tiny speaker doesn't rely on moving parts and instead produces sound through the thermoacoustic effect. When an alternating current passes through the nanotubes, the material heats and cools the air around it; as the air warms, it expands, and as it cools, it contracts. This expansion and contraction creates sound waves. The new nanotube speaker could be manufactured at low cost in the same facilities used to make computer chips, the researchers say." And it exists in the real world: "The Tsinghua researchers integrated these thermoacoustic chips into a pair of earbud headphones and connected them to a computer to play music from videos and sound files. They’ve used the headphones to play music for about a year without significant signs of wear, Yang says. According to him, this is the first thermoacoustic device to be integrated with commercial electronics and used to play music."

Yes, but...

[mellon]

..what do they sound like?

A solution in search of a problem

[Puls4r]

I wasn't aware that our current headphones had any problems that would be addressed with nanotubes. We have small phones that fit in the ear, big phones that look stupid on peopel, and everything in between. In all my years of using earbuds, it's always the cord that fails. Not the buds themselves. Now if they can fix THAT problem, that'd be worth something.