The characteristics of soot vaporization induced by a high-energy Pulsed laser were studied in an ethylene-air laminar flame. A system consisting of two pulsed lasers was used for the experiments. The pulse from the first laser was used to vaporize the soot particles, and the delayed pulse from the second laser was used to measure the residual soot volume fraction. Laser-induced soot vaporization was characterized according to the initial particle size distribution. The results indicated that soot particles could not be completely vaporized simply by introducing a high intensity laser pulse. Residual soot volume fractions present after vaporization appeared to be insensitive to the initial soot particle size distribution. Since the soot vaporization effect is more pronounced in the region of high soot concentrations, this laser-induced soot vaporization technique may be a very useful tool for measuring major species in highly sooting flame.