Silicon solar cells still require cost reduction and improved efficiency to become more competitive. New architectures can provide a significant increase in efficiency, but today most of the approaches need additional fabrication steps. In this context, laser processing offers a unique way to replace technological steps like photolithography that is not compatible with the requirements of the photovoltaic industry. In particular laser induced thermal effects can be used to activate or re-organise dopants at the silicon surface to design new emitter geometries. In this paper dopant diffusion using a nanosecond UV laser on phosphorous-doped silicon emitters is studied. The presence of a phosphosilicate glass underneath a silicon nitride layer leads to a local decrease of the emitter sheet resistance from 100 Omega/sq to 20 Omega/sq. Laser induced damage, phosphorus diffusion profile and electrical shunt are assessed in the perspective of selective emitter silicon solar cells fabrication compatible with electrochemical metal contacts deposition. (C) 2010 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.