Polycrystalline silicon films have been prepared by hot-wire chemical vapor deposition (HWCVD) at a relatively low substrate temperature of 430 degrees C, The material properties have been optimized for photovoltaic applications by varying the hydrogen dilution of the silane feedstock gas, the gas pressure and the wire temperature. The optimized material has 95% crystalline volume fraction and an average grain size of 70 nm. The grains have a preferential orientation along the (2 2 0) direction. The optical band gap calculated from optical absorption by photothermal deflection spectroscopy (PDS) showed a value of 1.1 eV, equal to crystalline silicon. An activation energy of 0.54 eV for the electrical transport confirmed the intrinsic nature of the films. The material has a low dangling bond-defect density of similar to 10(17) cm(3). A photo conductivity of 1.9 x 10(-5) Ohm(-1) cm(-1) and a photoresponse (sigma(ph)/sigma(d)) of 1.4 x 10(2) were achieved. A high minority-carrier diffusion length of 334 nm as measured by the steady-state photocarrier grating technique (SSPG) and a large majority-carrier mobility-lifetime (mu tau) product of 7.1 x 10(-7) cm(2) V-1 from steady-state photoconductivity measurement ensure that the poly-Si : H films possess device quality. A single junction n-i-p cell made in the configuration n(+)-c-Si/i-poly-Si : H/p-mu c-Si : H/ITO yielded 3.15% efficiency under 100 mW/cm(2) AM 1.5 illumination.