Hydrogenated nanocrystalline silicon (nc-Si:H) thin films were deposited from pure silane (SiH4) and hydrogen (H-2) gas mixture by conventional plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition (PE-CVD) method at low temperature (200 degrees C) using high rf power. The structural, optical and electrical properties of these films are carefully and systematically investigated as a function of hydrogen dilution of silane (R). Characterization of these films with low angle X-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy revealed that the crystallite size in the films tends to decrease and at same time the volume fraction of crystallites increases with increase in R. The Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopic analysis showed at low values of R, the hydrogen is predominantly incorporated in the nc-Si:H films in the mono-hydrogen (Si-H) bonding configuration. However, with increasing R the hydrogen bonding in nc-Si:H films shifts from mono-hydrogen (Si-H) to di-hydrogen (Si-H-2) and (Si-H-2)(n) complexes. The hydrogen content in the nc-Si:H films decreases with increase in R and was found less than 10at% over the entire studied range of R. On the other hand, the Tauc's optical band gap remains as high as 2 eV or much higher. The quantum size effect may responsible for higher band gap in nc-Si:H films. A correlation between electrical and structural properties has been found. For optimized deposition conditions, nc-Si:H films with crystallite size similar to 7.67 nm having good degree of crystallinity (similar to 84%) and high band gap (2.25eV) were obtained with a low hydrogen content (6.5 at%). However, for these optimized conditions, the deposition rate was quite small (1.6 angstrom/s). (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.