Spiral-Shaped Piezoelectric MEMS Cantilever Array for Fully Implantable Hearing Systems.

Fully implantable, self-powered hearing aids with no external unit could significantly increase the life quality of patients suffering severe hearing loss. This highly demanding concept, however, requires a strongly miniaturized device which is fully implantable in the middle/inner ear and includes the following components: frequency selective microphone or accelerometer, energy harvesting device, speech processor, and cochlear multielectrode. Here we demonstrate a low volume, piezoelectric micro-electromechanical system (MEMS) cantilever array which is sensitive, even in the lower part of the voice frequency range (300⁻700 Hz).