This study applies an analytical method in conjunction with the Laplace transform, experimental temperature data and sequential-in-time concept to obtain the unknown surface temperature, surface heat flux and surface absorptivity in the laser surface heating process for various surface treatments. The analytical form of the unknown surface temperature and heat flux can be obtained. The advantage of the present inverse method is that the estimates are obtained without any iterative process and an initial guess and may not be very sensitive to measurement error and measurement location. In order to validate the accuracy of the present method, an analytical example will be introduced. A comparison between the present results, the exact results and other estimated results is made. The effect of the degree of the approximate polynomial function on the present estimates is also investigated for various surface treatments. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.