Hot-wire chemical vapour deposition (HWCVD) was applied for the deposition of intrinsic protocrystalline (proto-Si:H) and microcrystalline silicon (mu c-Si:H) absorber layers in thin film solar cells. For a single junction mu c-Si:H n-i-p cell on a Ag/ZnO textured back reflector (TBR) with a 2.0 mu m i-layer, an 8.5% efficiency was obtained, which showed to be stable after 750 h of light-soaking. The short-circuit current density (Jsc) of this cell was 23.4 mA/cm(2), with a high open-circuit voltage (V-oc) and fill factor (FF) of 0.545 V and 0.67. Triple junction n-i-p cells were deposited using proto-Si:H, plasma-deposited proto-SiGe:H and mu c-Si:H as top, middle and bottom cell absorber layers. With Ag/ZnO TBR's from our lab and United Solar Ovonic LLC, respective initial efficiencies of 10.45% (2.030 V, 7.8 mA/cm(2), 0.66) and 10.50% (2.113 V, 7.4 mA/cm(2), 0.67) were achieved. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V All rights reserved.