We report a photoluminescence study of pulsed ruby laser irradiated crystalline and ion implanted GaAs, which supports the following conclusions: (1) pulsed laser irradiation of crystalline GaAs alters both the intensity and the spectrum of photoluminescence, corresponding to an increase in nonradiative recombination centers present in the material; (2) the variation of luminescent intensity with laser energy density is different for n‐ and p‐type materials; (3) no luminescence is detected in high dose ion implanted GaAs, either before or after laser annealing.