The reactive ion etching in combination with acidic etching (acidic+RIE) is applied to form the front surface texturing of 156 x 156 mm(2) multicrystalline silicon (mc-Si) wafers in order to improve the cell efficiency. The scanning electron microscope (SEM) analyses indicate that the RIE process produces dense nanoscale ridge-like structures based on the acidic textured surfaces, and these structures generate an excellent antireflection effect The matching processes including the post-cleaning, the phosphorus diffusion, and the deposition of silicon nitride (SiNX) antireflection coating are optimized. The acidic+RIE textured surfaces in combination with high sheet resistance emitters result in a remarkable enhancement in short wavelength response and then improve the short circuit current density (J(SC)) significantly. The absolute conversion efficiency of acidic+RIE textured solar cells is improved 0.51% on average compared to the acidic textured solar cells in mass production, and a maximum full-area cell efficiency of 18.49% is achieved on the mc-Si solar cell with a conventional cell structure. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.