In the glass/TCO/p-i-n a-Si/Al type of amorphous silicon solar cell, the effects on solar cell efficiency and metastability for the various kinds of TCO analyzed by SAM and ESCA, which was used to measure the diffusion profiles of In and Sn and the Fermi energy shifts in the TCO/p interface respectively. Indium which diffused into a-Si p-layer did not have any significant effects on the Fermi level shift of p-layer when the content of $B_2H_6/SiH_4$ in p-layer was at 1 gas%. The cell fabricated on $SnO_2$ turned out to have the best cell photovoltaic characteristics. ITO fabricated by electron beam deposition system, which was shown to have the greatest rate of diffusion of Indium in ITO/p interface produced the worst metastability among the cells tested.