Highly anisotropic piezoelectric composites promise a new frontier in electroacoustic devices by combining the advantageous properties of both piezoceramics and polymers. Fundamentally, piezoelectric loudspeakers employ the converse piezoelectric effect to convert electrical to mechanical energy. Quasi-1–3 piezoceramic/polymer composites represent a novel approach to flat-panel loudspeakers that are tunable in modulus, with opportunities for mechanical flexibility, optical transparency, and large-area coverage. Their processing route enables relatively flexible design parameters, such as the particle loading, matrix modulus, film thickness, film size, and electrode-material stiffness. Novel processing routes of electric field (E-field) aligned–piezoelectric composites are demonstrated, including using the relaxor ferroelectric PMN–PT to enhance the acoustic performance and photocurable resins to accelerate the materials processing. Material properties critical for dielectrophoresis are characterized and loudspeakers were fabricated based on the optimal processing conditions. Subsequently, electroacoustic characterization explores the effect of loudspeaker size, substrate stiffness, the microphone distance, the piezoceramic material, and the matrix modulus. Finally, finite element (FE) modeling of the electromechanical behavior validates the natural frequencies and the modes shapes of the loudspeakers via the analytical solution and the frequency response to electrical and mechanical excitation. Good correspondence between the predicted electroacoustic performance and the experimentally validated model are observed.

Piezoelectric composite films as flat-panel loudspeakers: Application and modeling

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