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Researchers have created an audio speaker using ultra-thin wood film. The new material demonstrates high tensile strength and increased Young’s modulus, as well as acoustic properties contributing to higher resonance frequency and greater displacement amplitude compared to a commercial polypropylene diaphragm in an audio speaker.
[...] The process for building the ultra-thin film involved removing lignin and hemicellulose from balsa wood, resulting in a highly porous material. The result is hot pressed for a thickness reduction of 97%. The cellulose nano-fibers remain oriented but more densely packed compared to natural wood. In addition, the fibers required higher energy to be pulled apart while remaining flexible and foldable.
At one point in time, plastics seemed to be the hottest new material, but perhaps wood is making a comeback?
Journal Reference:
Wentao Gan et al. Single-digit-micrometer thickness wood speaker, Nature Communications (2019). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-13053-0
(Score: 2) by sjames on Monday December 02 2019, @05:43AM
This process maintains the orientation of the cellulose fibers allowing it to be sufficiently strong while being thinner and lighter than the old paper speaker cones.
Unlike the magic rocks and tuning the room via a very special phone call, this may actually make an objective improvement on a stereo's performance, but I suspect it's still well into the audiophile domain.