NOVELTY - The method involves applying a damage removal etch (DRE) to a semiconductor material to create an root mean square (RMS) surface roughness of about 0.5 nanometer to about 50 nanometers (42). A single side of the material is textured by irradiating a target region of the material with laser radiation using a pulsed laser to create features having a size of about 50 nanometer to about 10 microns. The material is heated to a temperature of greater than about 700 degree Celsius to simultaneously activate the dopant and bond a metal paste to the material.    USE - Method for making a photovoltaic semiconductor device i.e. thin film silicon solar cell, for solar photovoltaic applications. Can also be used for a microcrystalline solar cell and a micromorph solar cell.    ADVANTAGE - The method enables using laser texturing of smooth surfaces produced by the optimized DRE processing to provide unique surface features that are uniform in structure, size, and height, and can more effectively diffuse, trap, and absorb electromagnetic radiation. The method enables using a laser-based texturing step to optimize etch chemistry around the DRE step, thus providing higher quality DRE within shorter processing time by reducing the damage created by multiple chemical processing steps through replacement with the laser processing step, and hence generating a semiconductor wafer having a smoother surface while yielding better crystalline defect gettering effects during phosphorus-based emitter diffusion process, and improving wafer bulk lifetime.    DETAILED DESCRIPTION - The pulsed laser is a femtosecond laser, a picosecond laser, and a nanosecond laser. The semiconductor material is silicon, multicrystalline, microcrystalline, nanocrystalline, polycrystalline, and monocrystalline semiconductor.    DESCRIPTION OF DRAWING(S) - The drawing shows a flow diagram illustrating a method for making a photovoltaic semiconductor device.    Step for applying DRE to a semiconductor material (42)    Step for applying laser radiation through dopant material and onto target region to texture and dope portion of semiconductor material (44)    Step for applying metal contact to the semiconductor material (46)    Step for annealing the semiconductor material (48)