# Research Progress and Applications of 2D Antimonene
## 4 Conclusions  
Antimonene has the characteristics of high carrier mobility, adjustable band gap, saturable absorption and high stability. In order to explore the practical applications of antimonene, extensive research has been conducted on its synthesis. Mechanical exfoliation method has the advantages of simple production process and low cost, can be used to prepare single or few-layer antimonenes with good film stability, but because the adhesive tape will take away a large number of thin sheets, the peeling efficiency is low, and it is not easy to control the level. Compared with the mechanical exfoliation method, the liquid phase exfoliation method has a higher yield. The liquid phase exfoliation method has the advantages of low cost, simple process and relatively large yield of the film, but it is affected by solvents, ultrasonic cleaning process and so on. Due to the influence of residual solvent and capillary and adhesion force, the film thickness detection is not accurate, and therefore the quality of antimonene will be affected. The size of single-layer antimonene prepared by this method is generally larger than that of the mechanical exfoliation method. Molecular beam epitaxy has better repeatability, and its resulting film crystallization is perfect, its substrate temperature, the growth rate of the film, the composition and doping concentrations can be adjusted as required, but the growth rate is relatively low and the equipment facility is expensive. With this method, the size of single-layer antimonene is mostly tens of nanometers, and the preparation process is also affected by many factors. Meanwhile, antimonene has some advantages in sensor, battery, medicine and laser applications. The preparation of antimonene using MBE is affected by substrate, growth temperature, beam flux, etc. Si substrate is a particular candidate for MBE growth of antimonene, owing to several reasons. Compared with uncommon substrates such as PdTe\({}_{2}\), Si is not only lattice-matched to the epitaxial material, but also has mature technology, low cost, and its pretreatment is less difficult. In addition, Si is the is the basis of CMOS process, which can bring great potential for practical applications of antimonene. When the substrate temperature is 90-130 \({}^{\circ}\)C, the adhesion coefficient of antimony is moderate, and higher than at room temperature, which is conducive to antimonene thin film growth with good uniformity and large size. As a next step, we propose to control the substrate temperature to maintain it within 90-130 \({}^{\circ}\)C, to look for the possibility of preparing monolayer antimonene by attempting the rapid nucleation and slow growth mode. Antimonene films have the characteristics of large band gap, high photothermal efficiency, high carrier mobility and broadband nonlinear optical response, are suitable for optical switch, optical modulator, optical threshold device and other optoelectronic devices. Antimonene transistors, owing to its unique characteristics, have gradually become a research hotspot in the field of optoelectronic materials. Antimonene transistors are expected to replace silicon transistors in the near future. **Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, T.Z. and L.L. ; methodology, L.Z. and Z.L. ; writing--original draft preparation, T.Z., L.Z. and Z.L. ; writing--review and editing, L.S. and Z.Q. ; visualization, G.L., L.S. and Y.Q. ; supervision, Z.Q. and Y.Q. ; funding acquisition, G.L. and L.L. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.