Laser-assisted particle removal has acquired a growing importance in last few years, finding applications in several fields ranging from microelectronics to conservation and restoration of materials having cultural or historical interest. Recently new 'indirect' laser cleaning techniques such as 'shock' and 'verso' laser cleaning have been developed. Here we present a simple laser cleaning mechanical model in order to associate cleaning efficiency to surface deformation characteristics during cleaning pulse and apply it to examine the behaviour of 'verso' laser cleaning which has experimentally shown promising results on cellulosic (paper and cotton) materials. (C) 2004 Published by Elsevier B.V.