Particulate coatings have wide ranging applications in several new technologies such as flatpanel displays, sintering of advanced ceramics, rechargeable batteries, etc. In this paper, we show the feasibility of the pulsed laser ablation technique to make very thin, uniformly distributed and discrete coatings in particulate systems so that the properties of the core particles can be suitably modified. Presently, laser ablation techniques have been primarily applied to deposit thin films on flat substrate materials. To deposit discontinuous particulate coatings, the laser induced plume from the target comes in contact with an agitated bed of core particles (size 1–800μm). The pressure and nature of the background gas (inert or active) controls the cluster size of the particles in the laser plume. Experiments were conducted for laser deposition of silver particles on alumina core particles by excimer laser (wavelength = 248 nm and pulse duration = 25 nanosecond) irradiation of silver targets. The surface coverage and the coating of the film wasf found to depend on the laser parameters (energy density and number of laser pulses) as well as the residence time of the core particles in the plume regime. The films were characterized by wavelength and energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy techniques.