Excimer laser crystallized nanocrystalline silicon layers were used to fabricate solar cells. The laser crystallized layers are characterized with Raman spectroscopy for structural investigations and with atomic force microscopy to study surface modifications upon crystallization. The current-voltage characteristics of the devices completed with aluminium back contacts were investigated with air mass 1.5 G solar simulations. The resulting nanocrystalline solar cells show inferior performance compared with amorphous silicon devices. The degradation of open circuit voltages and short circuit currents with the increase of crystallization energy density is explained to be due to thermal modification of the p-type/intrinsic layer interface and band gap enhancement of fine-grained nanocrystalline layers of the devices along with increased surface and grain boundary recombination of carriers. (c) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.