The effects of Ar plasma exposure on transconductance, channel sheet resistance, output resistance, and gate contact ideality factor of GaAs metal-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MESFETs) were investigated using two different high-density plasma sources, namely inductively coupled plasma and electron resonance plasma. Ion-induced damage is found to be reduced at moderate source powers (similar to 200 W) because of the reduction in cathode dc self-bias and hence ion energy, but at higher source powers the increase in ion flux produces significant deterioration of the device performance. Careful attention must be paid to both ion flux and ion energy in order to minimize ion-induced damage. Due to their relatively low channel doping levels, MESFETs are found to be more sensitive to plasma damage than devices with very heavily doped component layers such as heterojunction bipolar transistors.