Our unique, high‐efficiency c‐Si solar cell, named the HIT cell, has shown considerable potential to improve junction properties and surface passivation since it was first developed. The improved properties in efficiency and temperature dependence compared to conventional p – n diffused c‐Si solar cells are featured in HIT power 21TM solar cell modules and other applications which are now on the market. In the area of research, further improvement in the junction properties of the a‐Si/c‐Si heterojunction has been examined, and the highest efficiency to date of 20.1% has recently been achieved for a cell size of 101 cm2. The high open circuit voltage exceeding 700 mV, due to the excellent surface passivation of the HIT structure, is responsible for this efficiency. In this paper, recent progress in HIT cells by Sanyo will be introduced. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

A very high deposition rate for high-quality microcrystalline silicon (lJc-Si) films has been achieved under very high-pressure conditions (> 1,000 Pa) using a Localized Plasma Confinement (LPC)-CVD method which has a special cathode.The uniformity of the IJc-Si film thickness was 2.4% on a 55x65 cm 2 glass substrate with a deposition rate of 2.7 nm/s. We also achieved maximum conversion efficiency of 11.4% for an a-Si/lJc-Si tandem solar cell (1 cm 2 ) on a 20x20 cm 2 glass substrate and average conversion efficiency of 9.84% for a-Si/lJc-Si tandem solar cells (1 cm 2 ) on a 55x65 cm 2 glass substrate with a deposition rate (Rd) of 1.8 nm/s. These results indicate that LPC-CVD method is a good candidate as an effective production technology for large-area, high-performance IJc-Si thin-film solar cells.

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