Large-area (50 cm 2) two-dimensionally periodic crystalline silicon structures with lattice constants between 350 nm and 2 μm were prepared by high-rate electron-beam evaporation of silicon on nanoimprinted glass substrates. All processing steps have little technological intricacy, are up-scalable to large areas, and thus hold the potential for low-cost production of advanced nanostructured photovoltaic devices or large-area 2D photonic crystals. The 2 μm-periodic materials exhibit a promising absorption enhancement with light path enhancement factors larger 40 at λ=1000 nm enabling the development of highly effective light trapping architectures for polycrystalline silicon thin-film solar cells. Photonic band structure effects at near infrared wavelengths could be identified by angular resolved reflection measurements in hexagonal 350nm-periodically patterned silicon films inspiring the formation of large-area two-dimensional photonic crystals for telecommunication wavelengths. © 2012 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.