Abstract
In daily life, we often use earphone to listen sound and music. However kanal type earphone like earplug shape shuts off the sound of surroundings, thus, is not preferable to use in jogging or driving. Bone conductive speaker is alternative to hear sound from surroundings and player simultaneously. However conventional ones based on piezoelectric material or voice coil are large size, difficult to equip, and amplifier necessary due to the low output force. Here, we propose functional earphone using magnetostrictive vibrator. The device consists of magnetostrictive rod (Galfenol) and magnetic yoke constructing unimorph structure, winding coil, bias magnet and vibration plate. The ring shape vibrator with hole to pass air-conductive sound is easy to equip on ear hole and can generate sufficient sound without additional amplifier. In this study, we fabricate several prototypes to evaluate static and dynamic characteristics to verify the principle and advantages.
