316 stainless steel was surface cladded with Co-based alloy using a high power semiconductor laser system. Microstructure, chemical composition, constituent phases and microhardness of the clad coating were investigated with SEM, EDS, XRD and Vickers hardness tester, respectively. The experimental results show that the microstructure of the layer is dense, no voids, cracks or other defects appearing and metallurgical bond between coating and substrate is perfect, The clad layer was mainly consisted of a fine dendritic structure, the constituent phases of the clad layer are mainly composed of γ-Co, (Cr,Mo)23C6 and Cr7C3, the microhardness of clad layer reaches about 720HV, which is about 3 times larger than that of the 316 stainless steel substrate.