Sheets made of carbon nanotubes behave like a loudspeaker when zapped with a varying electric current, say researchers at Tsinghua University in Beijing and could lead to new generation of cheap, flat speakers and even talking clothing.

The sound is generated by the thermoacoustic effect. The flexible nanotube sheets can be stretched or flexed into complicated shapes and still produce sound, and when fully stretched, the sheets are transparent and so they could be attached to the front of an LCD screen to replace standard speakers, or stitched into clothing to create “singing and speaking jackets.”