Edge recombination and grid shading are two loss mechanisms which decrease solar cell efficiency. We introduce a new way for decreasing both significantly by a novel contact frame design which runs along the edge on the surface of a solar cell. No additional processing is necessary for preparing the contact frame. For a 100 cm 2 commercial c-Silicon (Si) solar cell the efficiency increased from 16.18% to 16.83% at 1 Sun (AM 1.5) as estimated by careful device simulation. (C) 2002 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.