[en] Laser ablation was studied as a means of removing radioactive contaminants from the surface and near-surface regions of concrete. The authors present the results of ablation tests on cement and concrete samples using a 1.6 kW pulsed Nd:YAG laser with fiber optic beam delivery. The laser-surface interaction was studied using cement and high density concrete as targets. Ablation efficiency and material removal rates were determined as functions of irradiance and pulse overlap. Doped samples were also ablated to determine the efficiency with which surface contaminants were removed and captured in the effluent. The results show that the cement phase of the material melts and vaporizes, but the aggregate portion (sand and rock) fragments. The effluent consists of both micron-size aerosol particles and chunks of fragmented aggregate material. Laser-induced optical emission spectroscopy was used to analyze the surface during ablation. Analysis of the effluent showed that contaminants such as cesium and strontium were strongly segregated into different regions of the particle size distribution of the aerosol