Laser beam irradiation was modeled to investigate the thermal responses of multijunction photovoltaic cell to the irradiation of oblique incident monochromatic light. First, the monochromatic light absorption in multijunction photovoltaic cell is formulated with accounting for multiple reflections as well as interferences. Then, an iterative algorithm was established to calculate the depositions of incident laser energy in every layer. Finally, the temperature characteristics of the photovoltaic cell are analyzed with finite element method. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.