The ablation of sintered silicon carbide ceramics by an ArF excimer laser was studied. Three zones are generated: the ablation zone that presented molten morphology and was composed by the Si and C phase; the condensation zone formed by vaporized SiC; and the oxidation zone that showed the characteristics of thermal oxidation. The ablation depth and oxidation range increase linearly with fluence and pulses within 0.5–4 J/cm², but the normalized ablation efficiency is constant (3.60 ± 0.60 μm·mm²/J). The theoretical photochemical ablation depth supplies 25% of the total depth at 1 J/cm² but decreases to 16% at 4 J/cm². The ablation is dominated by the photothermal effect and conforms to the thermal evaporation mechanism.