Everybody heard about LEDs and the brightness of the colors that they emit. Until now the LEDs did not receive too much attention from the big lighting companies and just when there were some cool involving LED lighting, some Californian researchers claim that they have developed a new hybrid light that are cheaper, long-lasting, more energy efficient and have the same bright colors as conventional LEDs.

This new technology was called LEC and it represents a combination between regular LEDs and light emitting electrochemical cells which eventually could lead to cheaper HDTVs and other very flat displays. This technique is not that innovative, but until now “LECs have always had problems with lifetime” as Yan Shao said.

Yan Shao is a researcher at the University of California, Santa Barbara and is one of the authors of this project. Professor Shao claims that they “demonstrated for the first time that organic LECs can have a long lifetime; even longer time than organic LEDs”.

These LECs are so cheap because they can be printed in film rollers and are longer lasting because their light will brighten as days passing, unlike LEDs which tend to fade as they get older. Another advantage is the time of illumination - LECs light up instantly meanwhile LEDs need some time to fully illuminate.

LECs received praises from Qibing Pei, researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles, who said that “Traditional LEDs are not suitable for high-resolution information display such as TV sets. The LECs can be”. The race hots up for the best lighting technique and we are expecting LEDs developers with a new project that will beat LECs’ technology.