A CdS film as an antireflective (AR) coating has been successfully deposited on spherical silicon solar cells by chemical bath deposition, which is a novel deposition method of AR coatings for spherical silicon solar cells. The CBD method is a growth method in an aqueous solution and enables film formation for electronic devices with arbitrary shapes. The solar cell performance of the cell with the CdS film showed a 16% increase in short circuit current compared to that without an ARC. The result confirms that the CBD method is useful for the ARC fabrication of spherical silicon solar cells. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.