We compared surface passivation of c-Si by a-Si:H with and without atomic hydrogen treatment prior to a-Si:H deposition. The atomic hydrogen is produced by hot-wire chemical vapor deposition (HWCVD). For this purpose, we deposited a-Si:H layers onto both sides of n-type FZ c-Si wafers and measured the minority carrier effective lifetime and implied V(OC) for different H treatment times ranging from 5 s to 30 s prior to a-Si:H deposition. We found that increasing hydrogen treatment times led to lower effective lifetimes and implied V(OC) values for the used conditions. The treatments have been performed in a new virgin chamber to exclude Si deposition from the chamber walls. Our results show that a short atomic hydrogen pretreatment is already detrimental for the passivation quality which might be due to the creation of defects in the c-Si. AFM measurements do not show any change in the surface roughness of the different samples. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.