Surface properties of a thin-film p-on-n silicon solar cell with a subwavelength nanoporous structure fabricated on an emitter layer by using metal-assisted chemical etching (MACE) were investigated through an experiment and simulation. After 10-s MACE processing, the conversion efficiency increased by 43.09% (from 5.64% to 8.07%) was obtained, compared with a reference solar cell without MACE. The simulation result indicated that the surface recombination velocity was an exponential function of the etching time from 0 to 30s, and showed close agreement with the experimental data. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.