Abstract

In this study, a new transducer for a minimally invasive hearing aid which directly vibrates the tympanic membrane was proposed. The transducer consists of a magnet and a small sized coil to vibrate the tympanic membrane. To evaluate the performance of the transducer, an artificial tympanic membrane model was made, and the vibration of the artificial tympanic membrane caused by the transducer was measured. The results suggested that the transducer generated the excitation force of more than 80dB SPL in terms of sound pressure in the wide frequency range from 0.25 to 10kHz. Regarding the response to the signal of the human voice, the transducer had a higher fidelity than conventional high-quality speaker.