We investigate microcrystalline-silicon (mu c-Si) solar cells with photonic crystals on the top surface, which exploit the large-area resonant effect in photonic crystals to enhance light absorption, for the first time. Guidelines for designing the surface photonic crystals are discussed, showing the importance of oblique leakage loss suppression. The influence of direct surface etching of the intrinsic mu c-Si layer (or photovoltaic layer) is studied, and it is shown that unbalanced etching of the amorphous and crystalline components of the mu c-Si layer deteriorates the electronic performance, in particular, the open-circuit voltage and fill factor. We then introduce photonic crystals under an adequate etching condition, and confirm that the light absorption (or the external quantum efficiency) is successfully enhanced by improving the incident light coupling to the resonant modes. Finally, we fabricate a few-micrometer-thick mu c-Si solar cell with a photonic crystal on the top surface and demonstrate an active-area efficiency of 11%, resulting from enhancement of the short-circuit current density, while simultaneously suppressing the deterioration of open-circuit voltage and fill factor. The obtained efficiency is the highest reported for a category of mu c-Si solar-cell in which all the n/i/p layers are composed of Si, excluding wide-gap materials such as silicon oxide.