Models capturing the periodic steady-state behavior of rf capacitively coupled discharges are now commonplace. New plasma sources have been motivated by selectivity, charge-damage mitigation, and general process control needs in plasma processing of electronic materials. These new sources require models that can accurately capture the transient behavior of the plasma source.Such models are not commonplacebecause the behavior of transport parameters in transients is still not well understood and because the problem is inherently stiff, i.e., widely disparate time scales are important. In this paper, we present the results of an investigation of the simplest type of transient, known as a step disturbance, in a 2 cm gap parallel-plate argon discharge at 1 Torr. As examples, two classes of step transients are considered: step increases in the peak-to-peak (pp) applied voltage (300 to up to 450 V pp) and step decreases (300 to as low as 150 V pp). The resulting transients are interpreted in terms of time scales representative of electron and ion motion in the sheath, ionization dynamics, and neutral transport processes. The possibility of using these transients as a means of process identification is discussed. ©1997 American Institute of Physics.