A remote plasma metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (CVD) system was designed, constructed, and characterized mathematically and experimentally. The system uses a new unique reactor geometry which is particularly well suited to remote plasma CVD. GaAs was grown in the system with and without a rf plasma and the results compared for various electrode geometries. The plasma reduced the activation energy for growth from 18 kcal/mol without plasma to 14 kcal/mol with plasma and increased the growth rate by as much as two orders of magnitude between the temperatures of 500 and 600 °C. The rf electrode geometry and the distance between the plasma and the wafer were the most critical parameters in determining the growth rate with plasma.