A photovoltaic device is provided in which the tunneling barrier for hole collection at either the front contact or the back contact of a silicon heterojunction cell is reduced, without compromising the surface passivation either the front contact or at the back contact. This is achieved in the present disclosure by replacing the intrinsic and/or doped hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) layer(s) at the back contact or at the front contact with an intrinsic and/or doped layer(s) of a semiconductor material having a lower valence band-offset than that of a:Si—H with c-Si, and/or a higher activated doping concentration compared to that of doped hydrogenated amorphous Si. The higher level of activated doping is due to the higher doping efficiency of the back contact or front contact semiconductor material compared to that of amorphous Si, and/or modulation doping of the back or front contact semiconducting material. As a result, the tunneling barrier for hole collection is reduced and the cell efficiency is improved accordingly.