  Laser-cleaning of the electrodes in a planar micro-fabricated ion trap has
been attempted using ns pulses from a tripled Nd:YAG laser at 355nm. The effect
of the laser pulses at several energy density levels has been tested by
measuring the heating rate of a single 40Ca+ trapped ion as a function of its
secular frequency. A reduction of the electric-field noise spectral density by
~50% has been observed and a change in the frequency dependence also noticed.
This is the first reported experiment where the "anomalous heating" phenomenon
has been reduced by removing the source as opposed to reducing its thermal
driving by cryogenic cooling. This technique may open the way to better control
of the electrode surface quality in ion microtraps.
