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US 2020/0092666 A1Published application
Eardrum Transducer with Nanoscale Membrane
AssigneeWisconsin Alumni Research Foundation
InventorsMax Lagally, Abhishek Bhat, Frank Flack, Shelley Scott, Robert H. Blick
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A transducer supported by the eardrum provides a piezoelectric material exchanging energy with the eardrum through a nanoscale membrane, the latter serving to boost the coupling between the piezoelectric material and the eardrum
Claims18
A transducer comprising:
- a substrate sized to permit an inner surface of the substrate to be placed adjacent to a distal surface of an eardrum of a human ear to be supported by that distal surface, the substrate providing:
- piezoelectric material distributed about an opening in the substrate:
- a set of electrodes communicating with the piezoelectric material to electrically induce surface waves in the piezoelectric material around and not electrically induce surface waves within the opening, the surface waves directed to converge on a point in the opening;
- and
- a nanoscale membrane supported on the inner surface of the piezoelectric material covering the opening and acoustically coupled to the piezoelectric material around the opening to conduct the induced surface waves from the piezoelectric material into the nanoscale membrane to the point for constructive interference.
2 more elements
A method of communicating audio comprising:
- (a) attaching a transducer adjacent to an eardrum of a human to be supported on the eardrum, the transducer comprising:
- piezoelectric material distributed about an opening;
- a set of electrodes attached to the piezoelectric material to electrically induce surface waves in the piezoelectric material around the opening and not electrically induce surface waves within the opening, the surface waves directed to converge on a point in the opening in the substrate;
- and
- a nanoscale membrane in contact with the eardrum and supported on an inner surface of the piezoelectric material covering the opening and acoustically coupled to the piezoelectric material around the opening to conduct the induced surface waves from the piezoelectric material into the nanoscale membrane to the point for constructive interference;
- and
- (b) exciting the set of electrodes with phased waveforms having a fundamental frequency in excess of 100 kilohertz and modulated at an audio frequency wherein the surface waves have a frequency above the audio frequency.
4 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.