The electrical results of rf sputtered hydrogenated amorphous silicon carbide (a-Si1−xCx:H) films prepared under different sputtering conditions are presented. It was found that hopping and Poole–Frenkel effects are the conduction mechanisms for low and high applied fields, respectively. From the capacitance versus voltage measurements, the fixed charge density (Qf) and the interface trapped charge density (Dit) were found to be in the range of 5.5–6.81×1010cm−2and 5–13×1011eV−1 cm−2, respectively.Ditdecreases with either an increase in the total sputtering pressure, the partial hydrogen pressure, or the substrate temperature, but increases with an increase in the rf sputtering power. The decrease inDitwas found to be closely related to the increase in the number of silicon–hydrogen bonds. ©1997 American Institute of Physics.