Picosecond laser is an important machining technology for high hardness materials. In this paper, high power picosecond laser was utilized to drill micro-holes in C/SiC composites, and the effects of different processing parameters including the helical line width and spacing, machining time and scanning speed were discussed. To characterize the qualities of machined holes, scanning electron microscope (SEM) was used to analyze the surface morphology, energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) and X-ray photoelectric spectroscopy (XPS) were employed to describe the element composition change between the untreated and laser-treated area. The experimental results indicated that all parameters mentioned above had remarkable effects on the qualities of micro-holes such as shape and depth. Additionally, the debris consisted of C, Si and 0 was observed on the machined surface. The Si C bonds of the SiC matrix transformed into Si-0 bonds after machined. Furthermore, the physical process responsible for the mechanism of debris formation was discussed as well. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.