We report the electrochemical deposition of nanostructured nickel-based solar absorber coatings on stainless steel AISI type 316L. A sol-gel silica-based antireflection coating, from TEOS, was also applied to the solar surface by the dip-coating method. We report our initial results and analyze the influence of the stainless steel substrate on the final total reflectance properties of the solar absorber. The relation between surface morphology, observed by SEM and AFM, the composition of the electrodeposited surfaces analyzed by X-ray powder diffraction and the study of different electrodeposition conditions and silica sol-gel coatings is described. The best solar absorptance and thermal emittance values obtained on stainless steel substrates were 0.91 and 0.1, respectively. (c) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.