Organic photovoltaic cells are thin, lightweight, flexible and semi-transparent. These characteristics unlock new possibilities for applications in agriculture, architecture, wearable electronics and health science.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Relevant articles
Open Access articles citing this article.
-
Role of the thermomagnetic coupling mechanism in phase-change materials for advanced applications
Discover Applied Sciences Open Access 24 December 2025
-
Thermomagnetic synergy in phase change materials for revolutionizing energy storage and spintronic devices
Discover Materials Open Access 21 November 2025
-
Virtual characterization via knowledge-enhanced representation learning: from organic conjugated molecules to devices
npj Computational Materials Open Access 16 October 2025
Access options
Access Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journals
Get Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription
$32.99 / 30 days
cancel any time
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 digital issues and online access to articles
$119.00 per year
only $9.92 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on SpringerLink
- Instant access to the full article PDF.
USD 39.95
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

References
Yan, C. et al. Non-fullerene acceptors for organic solar cells. Nat. Rev. Mater. 3, 18003 (2018).
Liu, Y. et al. Unraveling sunlight by transparent organic semiconductors toward photovoltaic and photosynthesis. ACS Nano 13, 1071–1077 (2019).
Sun, C. et al. Heat-insulating multifunctional semitransparent polymer solar cells. Joule 2, 1816–1826 (2018).
Davy, N. C. et al. Pairing of near-ultraviolet solar cells with electrochromic windows for smart management of the solar spectrum. Nat. Energy 2, 17104 (2017).
Jinno, H. et al. Stretchable and waterproof elastomer-coated organic photovoltaics for washable electronic textile applications. Nat. Energy 2, 780–785 (2017).
Liu, W., Sun, S. & Zhu, X. Organic photovoltaics integrated with thermoelectric generator achieving low critical temperature difference and efficient energy conversion. Adv. Funct. Mater. 32, 2109410 (2022).
Huang, J. et al. Tandem self‐powered flexible electrochromic energy supplier for sustainable all‐day operations. Adv. Energy Mater. 12, 2201042 (2022).
Park, S. et al. Self-powered ultra-flexible electronics via nano-grating-patterned organic photovoltaics. Nature 561, 516–521 (2018).
Jinno, H. et al. Self-powered ultraflexible photonic skin for continuous bio-signal detection via air-operation-stable polymer light-emitting diodes. Nat. Commun. 12, 2234 (2021).
Bae, S.-H. et al. Hybrid integrated photomedical devices for wearable vital sign tracking. ACS Sens. 5, 1582–1588 (2020).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Hu, Y., Wang, J., Yan, C. et al. The multifaceted potential applications of organic photovoltaics. Nat Rev Mater 7, 836–838 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41578-022-00497-y
Published:
Version of record:
Issue date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41578-022-00497-y
This article is cited by
-
Activatable second-near-infrared-window multimodal luminogens with aggregation-induced-emission and aggregation-caused-quenching properties for step-imaging guided tumor therapy
Nature Communications (2025)
-
Virtual characterization via knowledge-enhanced representation learning: from organic conjugated molecules to devices
npj Computational Materials (2025)
-
Molecular design for low-cost organic photovoltaic materials
Nature Reviews Materials (2025)
-
Thermomagnetic synergy in phase change materials for revolutionizing energy storage and spintronic devices
Discover Materials (2025)
-
Self-assembled monolayers as hole transport layers in organic solar cells: progress in molecular design and device engineering
Science China Materials (2025)