AbstractLow temperature plasma deposition of a‐Si:H thin films has emerged as a promising alternative for high efficiency hetero junction (HJ) solar cells. In this work we study plasma processes for texturing and cleaning c‐Si wafers pursuing a low cost dry fabrication process of HJ solar cells. We have studied two independent plasma processes: i) Texturing of c‐Si wafers using SF6 ‐ O2 plasmas in a RIE system, in order to reduce the surface reflectance and therefore improve the light trapping. The effects of the RF power and gas ratio on the c‐Si surface texture have been studied in detail. Highly textured surfaces, with very low reflectance values (around 6% in the range of 300 – 1000 nm) have been achieved. ii) Etching of the native oxide and passivation of the c‐Si surface by plasma, in a standard RF PECVD system. We used SiF4 plasma with optimized conditions for an efficient native oxide removal, and without breaking the vacuum, 40 nm of a‐Si:H were deposited in order to passivate the c‐Si surface. High effective lifetime values were obtained (τeff ≈ 1.5 ms), providing high implicit open circuit voltages (Voc ≈ 0.713 V) and low surface recombination velocities (Seff < 9 cm s‐1). (© 2010 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)