We demonstrate a new class of silicon texturing approach based on inorganic (sodium hydroxide, NaOH) and organic (tetramethylammonium hydroxide, TMAH) alkaline liquor etching processes for photovoltaic applications. The first stage of inorganic alkaline etching textures the silicon surface rapidly with large pyramids and reduces the cost. The subsequent organic alkaline second-etching improves the coverage of small pyramids on the silicon surface and strip off the metallic contaminants produced by the first etching step. In addition, it could smoothen the surface of the pyramids to yield good morphology. In this study, the texturing duration of both etching steps was controlled to optimize the optical and electrical properties as well as the surface morphology and passivation characteristics of the silicon substrates. Compared with traditional inorganic NaOH texturing, this hybrid process yields smoother (111) facets of the pyramids, fewer residual Na+ ions on the silicon surface, and a shorter processing period. It also offers the advantage of lower cost compared with the organic texturing method based on the use of only TMAH. We applied this hybrid texturing process to fabricate silicon heterojunction solar cells, which showed a remarkable improvement compared with the cells based on traditional alkaline texturing processes. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.