Polycrystalline II-VI semiconductor materials show great promise for efficient, low-cost photovoltaics. Large-area deposition of the II-VI semiconductors such as CdTe is possible by a variety of methods but the use of a plasma-based method such as magnetron sputtering can have significant advantages. Here we present recent results in the fabrication of CdS/CdTe cells using rf magnetron sputtering and discuss some of the advantages that accrue from the use of sputtering methods in this class of materials. Some of these advantages are particularly relevant as the polycrystalline thin-film PV community addresses issues related to the fabrication of tandem cells with efficiencies over 25%. Our best results have been obtained with sputtered ZnO:Al to achieve a CdTe solar cell having 14.0% efficiency at one sun with an air mass 1.5 global spectrum. We have also studied reactive sputtering of ZnTe:N which shows promise for use as a transparent back contact or as a recombination junction with ZnO:Al for II-VI based alloy top cells in a tandem solar-cell configuration. Finally, some advances have been made in substrate-configuration CdTe cells on Mo using sputter deposition that hold promise for flexible CdTe-based PV. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.