In this study investigations into silicon plasma deposition and etching using both a very high‐frequency plasma in dilute SiH4/H2near partial chemical equilibrium and the pulsed silane flow method are presented. Under the conditions used, simultaneous growth of microcrystalline silicon (&mgr;c‐Si:H) and etching of amorphous silicon (a‐Si:H) is observed. The results obtained support a &mgr;c‐Si:H growth model in which the net growth rate is regarded as the difference of a silicon deposition and an etch rate. By patterning amorphous silicon using laser crystallization it was possible to produce uniform and well resolved submicrometer microcrystalline silicon features. ©1995 American Institute of Physics.