It is a revolutionary silk fabric. Who developed it? MIT researchers, along with other institutions. It manages to suppress noise and create sound insulation in interior spaces. The amazing noise canceling fabric has multiple applications.
The fabric is barely thicker than a human hair. It contains a special fiber that vibrates when voltage is applied to it. The researchers took advantage of these vibrations to suppress sound in two different ways.

Blocking the sound
In one, the vibrating fabric generates sound waves that interfere with an unwanted noise to cancel it out. It is similar to noise canceling headphones. These work well in a small space like ears, but not in large enclosures like rooms or airplanes.
In the other, more surprising technique, the fabric is held still to suppress vibrations that are key to sound transmission. This prevents noise from transmitting through the fabric and further silences the volume. This second approach allows noise reduction in much larger spaces. For example, rooms or cars.
Using common materials such as silk, canvas and muslin, researchers created noise-suppressing fabrics. These would be practices to implement in real-world spaces. For example, such a fabric could be used to make dividers in open work spaces. Or thin fabric walls that prevent sound from passing through.

Expectation
«It is much easier to create noise than silence. In fact, to avoid noise we dedicate a lot of space to thick walls. “The new work provides a new mechanism for creating calm spaces with a thin sheet of fabric.” Yoel Fink says it in a statement. He is a professor in the departments of Materials Science and Engineering and Electrical and Computer Engineering. He is also a senior researcher at the Electronics Research Laboratory and lead author of a paper on the fabric.
The amazing noise-removing fabric generates great expectations. An open access article about the research recently appeared in Advanced Materials.