Abstract: An investigation is underway to assess thin copper cladding on substrate of 316L stainless steel by CW CO₂ laser.This perliminary work analyses some special features of the cladding process,provides a basic information about the relationship between the parameters of cladding processing and the quality of cladding layer.The influences of cladding condition,such as laser power,beam travelling speed,defocusing distance as well as power flow rate,on copper layer are also discussed in this paper.The main achievement of this investigation is the fact that a thin copper layer can be obtained on the substrate,with thickness smaller than 100 μm,dilution lower than 10% and few thermal distortion.