Preparation of low dimensional antimonene oxides and their application in Cu:NiOx based planar p-i-n perovskite solar cells

As a post graphene low dimensional material developed in the last two years, antimonene has attracted much attention. In contrast to graphite based low dimensional materials, antimonene is a bandgap semiconductor material, similar to black phosphorus, but its higher stability facilitates practical applications. Till to date, extensive theoretical studies have been conducted to explore their unique properties, but there are only a few experimental studies on their properties, let alone their applications. Therefore, in this study, high-quality antimonene oxide based low dimensional materials are prepared using a liquid exfoliation method in butanol. It is found that the antimonene oxide quantum dots have proper energy level alignment with CH3NH3PbI3. Consequently, they are successfully applied for perovskite solar cells based on copper doped nicklus oxide hole transfer layer, providing improved power conversion efficiency from 15.7% to near 18%. Detailed investigation shows that the performance improvement arises from enhanced charge extraction between hole transfer layer and perovskite. This study surely paves the way for the application of antimonene oxide based low dimensional materials in photovoltaic devices.