Samsung’s new OLED panel is also a fullscreen fingerprint reader

Samsung showcases several impressive display technologies every year. After displaying bendable, foldable, rollable, and even stretchable OLED panels over the past few years, the South Korean firm has now displayed a Sensor OLED panel that has a built-in sensor to detect fingerprints and even heart rate across the screen.

At the Society for Information Display's (SID) Display Week 2025 expo in the San Jose, USA, Samsung Display showcased its Sensor OLED panel that features embedded organic photodiodes (OPDs) directly into the panel. This allows fingerprints to be detected across the screen.

Currently, in-display fingerprint readers are separate sensors that are mounted below OLED panels, which means there is a specific area where you need to tap your fingers for fingerprint detection. However, with Sensor OLED panels, you can tap your fingers anywhere on the screen, as an organic photodiode (OPD) layer is embedded into the panel during the OLED deposition process.

The panel can even detect heart rate, blood pressure, and stress levels, just like smartwatches and fitness trackers can. This technology is based on how OLED light reflects differently depending on the contraction and expansion of blood vessels. The OPD layer than converts that data into health information.

This technology could be used to make devices ultra-thin. In the future, it could be used in the successor to the Galaxy S25 Edge.

The Sensor OLED Display technology was first featured earlier this year in Nature Communications. It is an international scientific journal that discusses groundbreaking scientific topics and technologies. The panel is now being showcased for the first time at the SID Display Week 2025 expo.

Visitors can play a ‘Digital Dalgona Game' (digital replica of Dalgona game from Squid Games) on Samsung's Sensor OLED panel. They can carve out various shapes displayed on the screen using a laser light instead of needle (used in the real game). It displays how the panel detects not only touch but also light input.