South Korean Lab Aims for Paper-Thin, Pocket-Portable Speakers

” Researchers at a South Korean laboratory think they have come up with a breakthrough to allow more widespread use of relatively inexpensive loudspeakers that can be pinned to a wall, then folded or rolled to be carried away in someone’s pocket.

They could even, says one expert, become a computer screen that’s also a speaker.

Scientists at the Thin Film Technology Research Center, at the government-run Korea Institute of Science and Technology, hope their new technique for bonding electrodes more securely to piezoelectric film will allow for more durable speakers made of the clear, paper-thin material.

“The film itself is a speaker,” says Koh Seok-keun, principal scientist on the project. ”