Digital discovery of large-scale optoelectronic materials via MPNICE machine-learning force fields

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Authors: Hadi Abroshan, Hyunwook Shaun Kwak, David J. Giesen, John L. Weber, Mathew David Halls
Cited by: 1
References: 70

Abstract

for predictive modeling of OLED materials. Trained on high-level electronic-structure data and incorporating iterative charge equilibration and long-range electrostatics, the MLFF framework enables rapid geometry optimization and molecular dynamics simulations with near quantum-mechanical accuracy. We show that MPNICE-optimized geometries closely reproduce density functional theory (DFT) reference structures across a diverse set of organic OLED materials, while reducing computational cost by orders of magnitude. This efficiency enables high-throughput screening workflows in which chemically enumerated molecular libraries are rapidly optimized and subsequently subjected to DFT post-processing calculations to evaluate key electronic properties. The approach is further validated through isomerization and conformational analyses, where MPNICE-based sampling accurately captures relative energetics and thermally accessible structural landscapes. Beyond static properties, we demonstrate how MPNICE-driven molecular dynamics simulations provide direct insight into the impact of molecular dynamics on optoelectronic response. For representative organometallic emitters, ensemble-averaged excited-state calculations performed on snapshots extracted from MLFF trajectories yield triplet energy distributions and absorption spectra in good agreement with experimentally measured solution-phase spectra, reproducing both peak positions and spectral broadening. Collectively, these results establish MPNICE-based machine-learning force fields as a scalable and physically grounded platform for data-driven OLED materials design and accelerated optimization of next-generation optoelectronic systems.

Fields of Study & Subjects

Machine Learning in Materials Science Computational Drug Discovery Methods Organic Electronics and Photovoltaics

Publication details

Journal / source
Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics
Publisher
Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC)
Volume
28
Issue
24
Pages
14764–14774
Publication date
1 January 2026
Language
EN