A high power rf transformer has been developed and implemented for the purpose of plasma production in a toroidal plasma source, PLADEPUS (plasma deposition at the University of Sydney), which is designed for plasma processing experiments. The plasma can be generated, either in a pulsed or a continuous mode, at electron densities up to about1013cm−3. The results show that rf power can be efficiently transferred to the plasma through the magnetic coupling of the transformer ferrite core. ©1998 American Institute of Physics.