The aluminum induced texturing method offers an effective light trapping scheme by random texture that is formed by U-shaped craters on the glass surface. The texture is mainly shaped by the reaction between Al and SiO2. However, the reaction mechanismis not totally understood. Besides, the influence of other components present in the glass such as Na2O, CaO, andMgO. is neglected. In this study, the evolution of Al films on soda-lime glass during annealing has been inspected by depth resolved X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The elemental distribution of Si, Al and O have been investigated for different annealing durations and compositional analysis has been conducted for Na, Ca andMg in addition to Si, Al and O. According to results, a relevant evolutionmodel for annealing process has been constructed. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.