US physicists have invented a new organic light-emitting diode (OLED) that promises to be brighter, cheaper and more eco-friendly than those currently widely used in electronic devices.

That's according to a new study published in the latest issue of the journal Science. The new spintronic OLED will be more eco-friendly, cheaper to make and brighter than today's OLEDs, and could outperform and replace all of the existing OLED technology, the study said.

The new kind of LED, known as spin-polarized organic LED or spin OLED, stores information in the electron's spin and the electrical charges. It also uses an "organic spin-valve", which is comprised of three layers: an organic layer that is sandwiched between two ferromagnet metal electrodes. The organic layer is a polymer known as deuterated-DOO-PPV, which acts as a semiconductor that emits orange-colored light.

The entire device is 300 microns wide and long and a mere 40 nanometers thick, which is about 1,000 to 2,000 times thinner than a human hair, the study said. Spin valves are electrical switches used in computers, TVs, cell phones and many other electrical devices.

"It's a completely different technology," said Z. Valy Vardeny, senior author of the study of the new OLED and professor of physics at University of Utah.

However, the new OLED can only operate at low temperatures and emits only the color orange, Vardeny said, adding that it must be improved to run at room temperature and produce red, blue and eventually white.

The original LEDs, introduced in the early 1960s, use a conventional semiconductor to generate colored light. Newer organic LEDs or OLEDs use an organic polymer or "plastic" semiconductor to generate light.