Temporally and spatially resolved optical emission, as well as Langmuir and electric probe measurements, were used to investigate the effects of radio frequency (rf) biasing near an electrode in an inductively coupled plasma cell. The plasma source is a modification of the Gaseous Electronics Conference rf Reference Cell. Emission from the atomic argon 750.387 nm transition was observed. With the lower electrode grounded, the optical emission did not exhibit any rf modulations. However, for a constant rf bias power of 9 W at frequencies from 1.695 to 33.9 MHz applied to the lower electrode, various waveforms were observed in the temporal evolution of the optical emission near the electrode as well as in the bulk plasma. Also, for pressures between 0.67 and 13.3 Pa of argon and a rf power of 9 W at a frequency of 2.712 MHz, the oscillations in the optical emission near the biased electrode showed the presheath/sheath region rapidly shrinking with increasing pressure. The dc sheath voltage drop, determined from Langmuir and electric probe measurements, did not exhibit a dependence on the applied rf frequency, but varied nearly linearly with the ratio of the bias power to the power dissipated in the plasma.