“…The surface roughness and material removal increased with increasing laser energy density, particularly for SiC/Si3N4 ceramic systems [44]. This is generally thought to be the case until ablation, melting, vaporization begins to take place [36,37], naturally, increasing the waviness and in turn the roughness. However, this was not the case herein (melting and vaporization), as further evident from the microstructure which showed changes in the material integrity, ultimately, leading to roughening of the laser shock peened SiC ceramic.…”