The fabrication and characterization of nanocarbon foams for their utilization in thermoacoustic device

Abstract

Thermo-acoustic (TA) sound generation (thermophone) is a non-resonant technique where electrical energy is converted to sound waves through Joule heating of a resistor (TA heat source) without any mechanical vibration, thus allowing for a wideband operation. It is clear that the material and the structure of the resistor play an important role on the performance of the thermophone. Recently, thermophone transducers fabricated from nanoscale materials hold the promise of a new transducer technology. Transducers made from these nanomaterials operate over a broad frequency range and can be designed to be lighter and thinner than competing technologies. Here, we report the TA heat source using nanocarbon foams. Nanocarbon foams are carbon nanotubes (CNTs) based all carbon porous materials. They have a hierarchically porous structure and the pore size and porosity can be tuned easily during the fabrication process. The foams consist of highly porous conductive CNT networks. They are freestanding, flexible, and...