A pulsed laser heating method has been investigated as a thermal annealing process for the improvement of P3HT/PCBM organic solar cell performance. We have shown that pulsed laser annealing can be used as an alternative to hot-plate annealing and produces comparable photovoltaic properties in P3HT/PCBM organic solar cells. Performance improvements can be achieved by irradiating either the ITO or aluminum electrodes. The increases in efficiency with laser annealing are due to increases in short circuit current density. Also, we have shown that morphology changes induced by rapid laser heating and cooling are similar to slower hot-plate annealing. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.