We showed that thin n-type CuO x films can be deposited by radio-frequency magnetron reactive sputtering and demonstrated the fabrication of n-CuO x /intrinsic hydrogenated amorphous silicon (i-a-Si:H) heterojunction solar cells (HSCs) for the first time. A highly n-doped hydrogenated microcrystalline Si (n-μc-Si:H) layer was introduced as a depletionassisting layer to further improve the performance of n-CuO x /i-a-Si:H HSCs. An analysis of the external quantum efficiency and energy-band diagram showed that the thin depletion-assisting layer helped establish sufficient depletion and increased the built-in potential in the n-CuO x layer. The fabricated HSC exhibited a high open-circuit voltage of 0.715 V and an efficiency of 4.79%.