Inductively coupled plasma (ICP) generated at 13.56 MHz has been employed for high-rate deposition of device-quality hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H). It has been shown that an increase in the how rate of a monosilane gas enhances the generation rate of deposition precursors, while the ion flux decreases and becomes saturated. The defect density reaches the minimum at a deposition rate of 2.3 nm/s. It has also been demonstrated that even at deposition rates around 4 nm/s, a-Si:H deposited at 150 degreesC exhibits a subgap defect density lower than similar to 6 x 10(16)cm(-3) after 12 h AM1 (100mW/cm(2)) light soaking. (C) 2001 Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.