Jiangsu Educational News Report about Li Quan's work

(Translated from Chinese)

Channel: Jiangsu Educational Channel

Program: Jiangsu Educational News

Date: February 21, 2014

Reporter: Yuanyuan Wang and Zao Liang

Have your ever worried that you can be overheard when talking about something secret with your friends? Recently, Li Quan, a third-year graduate student from School of Physics at Nanjing University, invented a technology that can help keep all your private talks from being overheard even if you talk in a crowded public.

In the laboratory, Li Quan is doing a research on sound wave propagation properties with his partner. They put a steel plate on the surface of a sound isolator and controlled sound wave propagation properties by changing the groove shape on the surface of the steel plate. Li Quan explained, from now on, with this material, when the speaker is speaking, only audience in front of the speaker can hear the voice. Sound in all other directions will disappear. That is to say, your voice can be sent like instructions. You can talk to anyone you want and others will not hear your talks.

Li Quan: We always keep an eye on the frontier of the research in the field. I think this technology can be used to make for example, the super-directivity speaker which can be applied to concert, underwater acoustics such as detecting fish school.

This research result has been published on the most recent issue of Nature Communications, which is a worldwide prestigious magazine. This technology is expected to be used in the field of underwater acoustics, ultrasound medical detection, etc. They have applied a patent for this technology. Li Quan said, one of the most suitable application of this technology is to use it in concerts. If you put this electronic device on the stage, then audience in front of the stage can hear the concert music, which can prevent sound loss and avoid disturbing other people in other directions. On aircraft and high-speed railways, where space between people is very limited, you and your friend can use this electronic device to chat, and others will not hear what you say. What’s more important is that this technology can help to do nondestructive testing for railways and constructions.