We observed that optical properties of silicon changed under high dose electron irradiation at 250 keV. Our experimental results revealed that the optical transmission through a silicon wafer is significantly increased by electron irradiation. Transmission increase by the change in the absorption coefficient is explained through an analogy with amorphous silicon. Moreover, solar cell open-circuit voltages indicated that defects were generated by electron irradiation, and that the defects responded to annealing. Our results demonstrated that the optical properties of silicon can be controlled by a combination of electron irradiation and hydrogen annealing.