30 years of progress in crystalline silicon solar cells

Since 1974, research and development for crystalline Si solar materials and devices have tenaciously been promoted. Great achievements on device performance and cost reduction were realized especially in the past 20 years. Primary R&D activities have been directed to grow high-quality multicrystalline Si wafers and to fabricate high-efficiency solar cells, which contributed to create a yearly cell production of 200 MWp-level in 2002. This paper describes the outline and major results of R&D projects deeply participated by the author.