Hydrogenated amorphous silicon films were deposited from 100% silane and disilane gases by a pulsed radio‐frequency plasma chemical vapor deposition method in which a nonzero low power level was maintained. The pulse parameters were varied to study their effect on the deposition rate. It was found that the deposition rate depends both on the high power level and the dwell time. For a given high power level, the deposition rate is less than that of a continuous wave discharge up to a certain dwell time and increases beyond this value in both silane and disilane discharges. Onset of powder formation was observed beyond this crossover point. ©1995 American Institute of Physics.