The anti-reflection properties of silicon based solar cell with parabolic cone array structure is studied. The parameters of structure that influence the anti-reflection performance, such as the height of parabolic cone array, the period and the duty factor, are analyzed by using of the finite-difference time-domain method. The analysis shows that the reflectivity tends to reduce as the height and duty factor of structure increase. According to the simulation result, less than 3% reflectivity can be achieved in the whole response spectrum of silicon solar cell (wavelength from 300 nm to 1200 nm) for 5 groups of parameters, i.e. the base diameter of parabolic cone is 128, 160, 213, 256, 320 nm respectively, with the array’s height of 600 nm and the period of array equal to the base diameter. A novel composite structure based on parabolic cone is also proposed, which reduces the reflectivity to 1%. It provides a novel design approach for the anti-reflective surface of silicon-based solar cells.