We have demonstrated that the surface recombination velocity can be lowered to as low as 1.3 cm/s for n-type c-Si wafers and to 9.0 cm/s for p-type wafers by using amorphous Si (a-Si) and Si nitride (SiNx) stacked films prepared by catalytic chemical vapor deposition (Cat-CVD). These values are much lower than those of c-Si wafers passivated by same stacked structures formed by low-damage remote plasma-enhanced CVD (PECVD). It is revealed that Cat-CVD a-Si insertion layers play an important role to improve interface quality, and also SiNx films are also essential for reducing the surface recombination velocity down to such low levels. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.