This paper studies the effect of deposition temperature on the growth of nanocrystalline silicon (nc-Si) films deposited by 13.56 MHz plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) with in-situ hydrogen (H) passivation. A high crystalline volume fraction (X-C) of 80% was found in the similar to 100 nm nc-Si film deposited at 260 degrees C with 99% H-2 diluted SiH4 at intermediate RF power between the power-limited and precursor-limited regimes. Based on these optimized deposition conditions, 300-400 nm nc-Si films deposited at 75-260 degrees C also showed a high X-C of 82-85%, an intrinsic-like dark-conductivity (sigma(dark)) of similar to 10(-6) S/cm, and even a low mean oxygen content (C-O) of 10(17)-10(18) at./cm(3). Although material properties were similar, deposition temperature appeared to change the qualitative structure of the nanocrystalline grains. The preferred grain orientation changed from < 111 > to < 220 > as the deposition temperature was increased from 75 to 260 degrees C due to enhanced surface diffusion of deposition precursors. This reflected in more compact and lateral columnar growth of nc-Si films with increasing deposition temperature. We successfully demonstrated high field-effect hole and electron mobilities of 33.8 and 225 cm(2)/Vs, respectively, in top-gate thin-film transistors (TFTs) employing the similar to 100 nm nc-Si channel layer deposited at 260 degrees C. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.