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Laser cladding is a surface engineering process in which a laser beam is used to fuse a layer of added material—delivered as powder or wire—onto a metallic substrate, producing a metallurgically bonded coating of controlled composition with limited dilution of the substrate ^[1]. The laser rapidly melts the clad material together with a thin surface layer of the substrate, and the resulting extremely high cooling rates generate a fine, rapidly solidified microstructure while the coating remains firmly bonded to the underlying part rather than being merely a loosely adherent layer ^[2]. The process is defined by the use of a focused laser as the localized heat source and by the objective of depositing a functional layer that imparts wear, corrosion, or high-temperature resistance to the surface without substantially altering the bulk component ^[1]. Laser cladding is distinguished from laser surface alloying and laser hardening by the deliberate addition of clad material, and from conventional welding by the precise, localized, and low-heat-input nature of the laser process, which controls dilution and minimizes distortion; the geometry and properties of the clad are governed by laser power, travel speed, and material feed rate ^[2]. Its defining characteristic is the creation of a strongly bonded, rapidly solidified surface layer through laser fusion ^[3].