Accelerated Screening and Development of Biomatched Organic Photovoltaic Active Layers for Next Generation Agrivoltaics

Reilly Seban^a^,^b, Rosemary M Thompson^a^,^c, Mahsa Barzgar-Vishlaghi^d, Emory Townley^d, Chandler K Dobson^e, David T Moore^a, Stephen R Forrest^d, Mark E Thompson^e, Bryon W Larson^a

^aNational Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO 80401, USA

^bDepartment of Physics, Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO 80401, USA

^cDepartment of Chemistry, Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO 80401, USA

^dDepartment of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA

^eDepartment of Chemistry, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089, USA

Proceedings of MATSUS Spring 2026 Conference (MATSUSSpring26)

B1 Future of Organic solar cells: What is next?

Barcelona, Spain, 2026 March 23rd - 27th

Organizers: Vida Engmann, Karen Forberich and Pascal Kaienburg

Oral, Reilly Seban, presentation 592
Publication date: 15th December 2025

Integrating biomatched organic photovoltaic (OPV) modules into greenhouses and polytunnel cladding enables a next-generation of agrivoltaics where crop and solar energy production land-use tradeoffs are eliminated. Spectral tuning via molecular design is key to transmitting plant light requirement wavelengths while harvesting other wavelengths for electricity. In this presentation we demonstrate the development of numerous biomatched photoactive layers using BT-CIC (4,4,10,10-tetrakis(4-hexylphenyl)-5,11-(2-ethylhexyloxy)-4,10-dihydrodithienyl[1,2-b:4,5b′ ]benzodithiophene-2,8-diyl)bis(2-(3-oxo-2,3-dihydroinden-5,6-dichloro-1-ylidene)malononitrile)), a near infrared absorbing high performance non-fullerene acceptor. Polymer donors are algorithmically screened from our organic semiconductor database for a target spectral compatibility with BT-CIC to produce biomatched active layers for a given plant species. With only the need to produce the standalone OPV thin film, photoconductance and charge-carrier lifetimes via Time Resolved Microwave Conductivity (TRMC) measurements further down-select high performance potential OPV biomatches. Using the example of BT-CIC, we show how biomatching and TRMC rapidly assess material performance to inform highest prioritization of device optimization of brand new active layer combinations. Finally, a higher-level scenario analysis is presented that combines synthetic complexity and material cost, ultimately towards the goal of accelerating commercialization and deployment of OPV.

Acknowledgements:

This work was authored in part by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, operated by Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC, for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) under contract no. DE-AC36-08GO28308. Funding was provided by the U.S. Department of Energy, the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, within the Solar Energy Technology Office through award number DE-EE0052768. The work does not necessarily represent the views of the DOE or the U.S. Government. By accepting the article for publication, the publisher acknowledges that the U.S. Government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this work, or allow others to do so, for U.S. Government purposes.

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