University of Utah scientists invent spintronic organic LED

A group of physicists from the University of Utah (EU) have invented an organic spintronic LED that promises to be brighter, cheaper and more environmentally friendly than the types of LEDs currently used in television and computer screens, lightning, traffic lights and numerous electronic devices.

Scientists at the University of Utah have developed an organic spintronic LED, a new generation of OLEDs different from conventional organic LEDs that can lead to brighter display devices, cheap and ecologically friendly. The team led by Valy Vardeny has already manufactured a prototype of the new type of LED, which produces an orange color. Vardeny hopes that within two years it will be possible to use the new technology to produce red and blue LEDs., and that in the end white organic spintronic LEDs can be created. However, It could be five years before the new LEDs hit the market, because now these operate only at temperatures that do not exceed 33 degrees Celsius below zero (28 degrees Fahrenheit below zero), and must be improved so that they can operate at higher temperatures, like the normal ones inside homes and in other environments.

The OLEDs (Organic LEDs, or organic light-emitting diodes) existing ones can each produce a certain color of light, such as red, green and blue, depending on the semiconductors used. A crucial advantage of the new spintronic OLEDs is that, in the future, a single device could produce different colors, controlled by changes in the magnetic field. Besides, Devices that use organic semiconductors are usually less expensive and produce less toxic waste than conventional silicon semiconductors..

Ramparts of the Varden, professor at the University of Utah, has developed this OLED prototype together with Tho D. Nguyen, assistant researcher and physics professor, y with Eitan Ehrenfreund, physicist at the Haifa Institute of Technology in Israel. “It is a completely different technology”, Vardeny declared to the publication Science. "These new organic LEDs can be brighter than regular organic LEDs."