TY - JOUR
T1 - Flexible Multifunctional Platform Based on Piezoelectric Acoustics for Human-Machine Interaction and Environmental Perception
AU - Zhang, Qian
AU - Wang, Yong
AU - Li, Dongsheng
AU - Xie, Jin
AU - Tao, Ran
AU - Luo, Jingting
AU - Dai, Xuewu
AU - Torun, Hamdi
AU - Wu, Qiang
AU - Ng, Wai Pang
AU - Binns, Richard
AU - Fu, Yongqing (Richard)
N1 - Funding information: We would like to thank all the volunteers who are involved in this work. This work is supported by the “National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC 51875521, 52175552, 12104320)”, the “Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (LZ19E050002)”, the Key Research and Development Program of Guangdong Province (Grant No. 2020B0101040002), Special Projects in Key Fields of Colleges in Guangdong Province (2020ZDZX2007), Research Project in Fundamental and Application Fields of Guangdong Province (2020A1515110561), Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation (2019A1515111199), Shenzhen Science & Technology Project (Grant Nos. JCYJ20180507182106754, JCYJ20180507182439574, RCBS20200714114918249, GJHZ20200731095803010), the Engineering Physics and Science Research Council of UK (EPSRC 10 EP/P018998/1), and International Exchange Grant (IEC/NSFC/201078) through Royal Society UK and the NSFC, and EPSRC NetworkPlus in Digitalized Surface Manufacturing (EP/S036180/1).
PY - 2022/9/14
Y1 - 2022/9/14
N2 - Flexible human–machine interfaces show broad prospects for next-generation flexible or wearable electronics compared with their currently available bulky and rigid counterparts. However, compared to their rigid counterparts, most reported flexible devices (e.g., flexible loudspeakers and microphones) show inferior performance, mainly due to the nature of their flexibility. Therefore, it is of great significance to improve their performance by developing and optimizing new materials, structures and design methodologies. In this paper, a flexible acoustic platform based on a zinc oxide (ZnO) thin film on an aluminum foil substrate is developed and optimized; this platform can be applied as a loudspeaker, a microphone, or an ambient sensor depending on the selection of its excitation frequencies. When used as a speaker, the proposed structure shows a high sound pressure level (SPL) of ~90 dB (with a standard deviation of ~3.6 dB), a low total harmonic distortion of ~1.41%, and a uniform directivity (with a standard deviation of ~4 dB). Its normalized SPL is higher than those of similar devices reported in the recent literature. When used as a microphone, the proposed device shows a precision of 98% for speech recognition, and the measured audio signals show a strong similarity to the original audio signals, demonstrating its equivalent performance compared to a rigid commercial microphone. As a flexible sensor, this device shows a high temperature coefficient of frequency of −289 ppm/K and good performance for respiratory monitoring.
AB - Flexible human–machine interfaces show broad prospects for next-generation flexible or wearable electronics compared with their currently available bulky and rigid counterparts. However, compared to their rigid counterparts, most reported flexible devices (e.g., flexible loudspeakers and microphones) show inferior performance, mainly due to the nature of their flexibility. Therefore, it is of great significance to improve their performance by developing and optimizing new materials, structures and design methodologies. In this paper, a flexible acoustic platform based on a zinc oxide (ZnO) thin film on an aluminum foil substrate is developed and optimized; this platform can be applied as a loudspeaker, a microphone, or an ambient sensor depending on the selection of its excitation frequencies. When used as a speaker, the proposed structure shows a high sound pressure level (SPL) of ~90 dB (with a standard deviation of ~3.6 dB), a low total harmonic distortion of ~1.41%, and a uniform directivity (with a standard deviation of ~4 dB). Its normalized SPL is higher than those of similar devices reported in the recent literature. When used as a microphone, the proposed device shows a precision of 98% for speech recognition, and the measured audio signals show a strong similarity to the original audio signals, demonstrating its equivalent performance compared to a rigid commercial microphone. As a flexible sensor, this device shows a high temperature coefficient of frequency of −289 ppm/K and good performance for respiratory monitoring.
U2 - 10.1038/s41378-022-00402-1
DO - 10.1038/s41378-022-00402-1
M3 - Article
SN - 2055-7434
VL - 8
JO - Microsystems and Nanoengineering
JF - Microsystems and Nanoengineering
IS - 1
M1 - 99
ER -