Aluminum-induced crystallization of a-Si is a promising path to cheap and simple definition of a seeding layer for epitaxial growth of a large-grained active layer in thin-film polycrystalline silicon solar cells on foreign substrates. The course of the crystallization has been shown to depend on a variety of factors such as temperature and deposition conditions of the aluminum and silicon layers. We suggest a dependency on the characteristics of the materials involved in the reaction, focusing particularly on the different reactivity of a-Si deposited with different deposition techniques (e-beam evaporation vs. PECVD). First results of high-temperature layer growth on the seeding layers and cell fabrication are also reported. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.