Triode assisted reactive sputtering (TARS) has been used to deposit device quality a-Si: H. One strong advantage TARS has over the glow discharge (GD) technique for depositing a-Si :H is that TARS does not use any toxic gasses. Only argon and hydrogen are used, instead of silane. It is also advantageous over other sputtering techniques in that it uses only DC power. Finally, all the deposition parameters can be controlled independently. The films grown were intrinsic and were characterized using several test methods. All of these tests indicate that when the proper deposition parameters are chosen, device quality a-Si : H can be deposited using this TARS technique.