Thin cells demand new grid design concepts in that all the contacts (to the emitter and base) be located on the front surface. Hence, the aim of the investigation is to determine the potential and the basic limitation of the design. With this concept, an interdigitated front grid structure was realized and cells were fabricated through a set of photolithography processes. Confirmed efficiencies of up to 11.5% were achieved on bonded silicon-on-insulator wafers with a cell thickness of 50 mum in the case of finger spacing more than 1000 mum and a base width of 35 mum. It was also shown from the results that to adapt the design rules for optimizing the base fraction and the shadowing fraction was noted as an important technique to realize high-efficiency thin silicon solar cells. (C) 2002 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.