TECHNOLOGY FOCUS - INORGANIC CHEMISTRY - Preferred Compositions: Silicon substrate is used as crystalline semiconductor layer. Overlayer stack contains single or multilayer dielectric coating, back reflector, diffusion barrier, transparent conductor, and/or metallic conductor. Overlayer stack contains metallic layer which is reflowed over greater than or equal to 1 edges of self-aligned opening to make contact with localized crystalline region. Dopant-containing amorphous silicon layer stack has a lower layer of undoped amorphous silicon providing a passivating function and upper layer of doped amorphous silicon providing a doped source function. Layer of undoped amorphous silicon and/or layer of doped amorphous silicon contain amorphous silicon (a-SiH), amorphous silicon germanide (a-Si(Ge)H), a-Ge(Si)H, and/or a-GeH. H content varies at 5-50 at.%. Layer of undoped amorphous silicon and/or layer of doped amorphous silicon contain carbon (C) and/or dopant, such as boron (B), phosphorus (P), arsenic (As), antimony (Sb), nitrogen (N), gallium (Ga), indium (In), and/or aluminum (Al). Preferred Processes: Pulsed laser radiation is provided to locally heat the selected area of the layer stack and an upper portion of the semiconductor layer underlying the selected area of the layer stack. Intrinsic amorphous silicon (i-aSiH) (bottom)/doped-aSiH (top) layer is formed on the surface of the crystalline semiconductor layer, and amorphous silicon layer stack contains a purely amorphous phase and an amorphous phase with embedded nanocrystalline and/or microcrystalline regions. An overlayer stack is formed on the dopant-containing amorphous silicon layer stack. Selected area of the dopant-containing amorphous silicon layer stack is irradiated to form greater than or equal to 1 localized crystalline region of high doping concentration and self-aligned opening in the overlayer stack above the localized crystalline region. Conductive contact layer is formed over the overlayer stack and exposed localized crystalline regions remaining after irradiation. Blanket transparent conductor layer is formed over dopant-containing amorphous silicon layer stack and localized crystalline regions remaining after irradiation, and metallic conductor layer is formed on transparent conductor layer in which metallic conductor has a grid pattern or a blanket pattern. A pattern, such as blanket pattern, grid pattern, finger and/or bus pattern, and spaced-apart dot pattern, is irradiated. Preferred Parameters: The i-aSiH is undoped aSiH with thickness of 2-20 nm, and the doped-aSiH is B-doped p-aSiH with thickness of 10-50 nm.