Without the bulky polarizers that control the light emitted by the OLED pixels, the screen is thinner and more flexible. In addition, the technology uses a black Pixel Define Layer (PDL) which keeps light from reflecting inside the panel. All of these changes allow more light to pass through the display leading to a brighter image and more power efficiency. Thus, a lower amount of power is needed to make the OLED display brighter.
The new OLED technology removes the polarizing plates and improves power efficiency by 25%. Image credit-Samsung
Changing over to a black PDL requires replacing an orange photosensitive polyimide (PSPI) material with black material. The PSPI material is known to leak light between the red, green, and blue sub-pixels which can reduce contrast and color accuracy. The black PDL absorbs the stray light reducing light leakage which helps to create deeper black colors improving the contrast ratio. Additionally, a color filter (CF) is printed at a low temperature on a thin film encapsulation (TFE) layer.
Samsung first employed the CoE technology on the Galaxy Z Fold 3’s foldable OLED display. Using the technology on the Galaxy S26 Ultra would make the latter the first “candy bar” form factor phone to sport an OLED panel with CoE technology. At this stage, it is unclear whether the Galaxy S26 and Galaxy S26+ will also use CoE OLED displays.
