GaAs samples implanted at room temperature with selenium ions at energies in the range 100–800 keV were annealed with a Q-switched ruby laser. The annealing was carried out in air, with no protective layer on the GaAs samples. The percentage electrical activity was found to depend on the implanted dose, ion energy, laser energy density and the substrate temperature during laser annealing. The mobilities of the electrically activated atoms were generally lower than the expected values. However, these were found to increase when the samples were thermally annealed subsequent to the laser irradiation. Low dose implants, i.e. less than 1.1014 cm-2, previously shown to be insensitive to laser annealing, have been successfully annealed in this work when the substrates were held at 200°C during laser annealing.