Anti reflection coatings (ARC), comprising of silicon-rich-nitride (SRN) films embedded with downconverting silicon nanocrystals were integrated into monocrystalline silicon solar cells fabricated using standard semiconductor fabrication techniques, and their effects were studied. Two types of ARC layers, one with single layer SRN film and other with double layer SiO x/SRN were deposited by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) during fabrication of silicon solar cells and thermally annealed to precipitate silicon nanocrystals. A relative increase in power conversion efficiency of 15.6% for single layer nanocrystals-embedded-ARC and 22.8% for double layer nanocrystals-embedded-ARC were observed compared to a reference cell. © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.