This paper reports on an improved piezoelectric microspeaker with a high sound pressure level of 90 dB, a total harmonic distortion of less than 15%, and coherence higher than 0.9. The fabricated Pb(Zr,Ti)O₃ (PZT) microspeakers have a thickness of only 1 mm including the speaker frame and an active area of 18 mm×20 mm. To achieve higher sound pressure and lower distortion, the PZT piezoelectric microspeaker has a well-designed speaker frame and a piezoelectric diaphragm consisting of a tilted PZT membrane and silicone buffer layer. From the simulation and measurement results, we confirmed that the silicon buffer layer can lower the first resonant frequency, which enhances the microspeaker's sound pressure at a low frequency range and can also reduce useless distortion generated by the harmonics. The fabricated PZT piezoelectric microspeakers are implemented on a multichannel speaker array system for personal acoustical space generation. The output sound pressure at a 30 cm distance away from the center of the speaker line array is 15 dB higher than the sound pressure at the neighboring region 30 degrees from the vertical axis.

In this paper, we present the results of a preliminary study on the piezoelectric energy harvesting performance of a Zr-doped PbMg_1/3Nb_2/3O₃-PbTiO₃ (PMN-PZT) single crystal beam. A novel piezoelectric beam cantilever structure is used to demonstrate the feasibility of generating AC voltage during a state of vibration. The energy-harvesting capability of a PMN-PZT beam is calculated and tested. The frequency response of the cantilever device shows that the first mode resonance frequency of the excitation model exists in the neighborhood of several hundreds of hertz, which is similar to the calculated value. These tests show that several significantly open AC voltages and sub-mW power are achieved. To test the possibility of a small scale power source for a ubiquitous sensor network service, energy conversion and the testing of storage experiment are also carried out.

This paper presents a novel hybrid sensor-based intrusion detection system for low-power surveillance in an empty, sealed indoor space with or without illumination. The proposed system includes three functional steps: (i) initial detection of an intrusion event using a sound field sensor; (ii) automatic lighting control based on the detected event, and (iii) detection and tracking the intruder using an image sensor. The proposed hybrid sensor-based surveillance system uses a sound field sensor to detect an abnormal event in a very low-light or completely dark environment for 24 h a day to reduce the power consumption. After detecting the intrusion by the sound sensor, a collaborative image sensor takes over an accurate detection and tracking tasks. The proposed hybrid system can be applied to various surveillance environments such as an office room after work, empty automobile, safety room in a bank, and armory room. This paper deals with fusion of computer-aided pattern recognition and physics-based sound field analysis that reflects the symmetric aspect of computer vision and physical analysis

We demonstrate a high-speed recording based on field-induced manipulation in combination with an optical reading of recorded bits on Au cluster films using the atomic force microscope (AFM) and the near-field scanning optical microscope (NSOM). We reproduced 50 nm-sized mounds by applying short electrical pulses to conducting tips in a non-contact mode as a writing process. The recorded marks were then optically read using bent fiber probes in a transmission mode. A strong enhancement of light transmission is attributed to the local surface plasmon excitation on the protruded dots.