We demonstrate improvements in the specific contact resistance of unannealed ohmic contacts by at least one order of magnitude on undoped 6H-SiC (silicon carbide, SiC). The improved contacts with a specific resistance of 0.3 Ohm cm(2) have been fabricated on SiC surfaces exposed to an argon plasma at -80 V for 2.5 min. Under these plasma conditions, the top monolayers of the plasma-exposed SiC surface is silicon rich as revealed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and the surface roughness is decreased by a factor of 2 from atomic force microscopy analysis.