Chemical Bath Deposited Antimony Oxide Thin Films for Efficient Perovskite Solar Cells.

The metal oxide electron transport layers (ETLs) of n-i-p perovskite solar cells (PSCs) are dominated by TiO 2 and SnO 2 , while the efficacy of the other metal oxide ETLs still lags far behind. Herein, an emerging, economical, and environmentally friendly metal oxide, antimony oxide (Sb 2 O x , x = 2.17), prepared by chemical bath deposition is reported as an alternative ETL for PSCs. The deposited Sb 2 O x film is amorphous and very thin (∼10 nm) but conformal on rough fluorine-doped tin oxide substrates, showing matched energy levels, efficient electron extraction, and then reduced nonradiative recombination in PSCs. The champion PSC based on the Sb 2 O x ETL delivers an impressive power conversion efficiency of 24.7% under one sun illumination, which represents the state-of-the-art performance of all metal oxide ETL-based PSCs. Additionally, the Sb 2 O x -based devices show improved operational and thermal stability compared to their SnO 2 -based counterparts. Armed with these findings, we believe this work offers an optional ETL for perovskites-based optoelectronic devices.