Copper-induced crystallization of a-Si on ZnO:Al (AZO) substrate is studied. On Ar sputtered AZO substrate, the optimized crystallite and crystalline ratio of poly-Si are similar to 30 nm and similar to 71%, respectively. O-2 is also introduced and optimized when preparing AZO substrates. On AZO substrate with O-2/Ar + O-2 = 3%, the crystallite and crystalline ratio of poly-Si are greatly improved, showing similar to 40 nm and similar to 82%, respectively. Textured AZO is prepared for analyzing the light-trapping efficiency. With 40 s etching in 0.5% HCl, similar to 0.7 mu m lateral scale and similar to 119 nm root mean square roughness is obtained. The scattering property is verified by the flat step over a large angle range in the angular distribution measurement. 660 nm Cu-induced poly-Si on this AZO substrate shows an average reflectivity of similar to 17.7%, only 45% of the flat Si, showing a good light-trapping efficiency and a potential use in solar cells. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.