Spider Power a “Game-Changer” For Microphones In Phones And Hearing Aids

Their microphone improves the directional sensing across a wide variety of frequencies that are often too quiet for microphones to pick up on. For someone with a hearing aid, that means being able to cancel out background noise when having a conversation in a crowded area. The same concept could be applied to the microphone inside cell phones.

Spider silk is thin enough that it also can move with the air when hit by soundwaves. “This can even happen with infrasound at frequencies as low as 3 hertz,” said Miles. Sound at that frequency is typically inaccessible. It’d be equivalent to hearing the tectonic plates moving in an earthquake.

The study used spider silk, but Miles explained that any fiber that is thin enough could be used in the same way.

Credit: Binghamton University, State University of New York

While the spider silk picks up the direction of airflow with great accuracy, that information has to be translated into an electronic signal to be of use.

“We coated the spider silk with gold and put it in a magnetic field to obtain an electronic signal,” said Miles. “It’s actually a fairly simple way to make an extremely effective microphone that has better directional capabilities across a wide range of frequencies.”

The study is a game-changer for microphones but may also tell us something unique about spiders, said Miles. He and Zhou speculate that because spider silk is so good at sensing air flow, it’s possible spiders can hear through their own web on top of what they are already known to hear through the small hairs on their bodies.Contacts and sources:
Ron Miles / Rachael Flores
Binghamton University, State University of New York