  An all-optical, near-resonant laser atom trap is used to prepare an
electronically excited and polarized gas target at mK-temperature for complete
photo-ionization studies. As a proof-of-principal experiment, lithium atoms in
the 2$^2$P$_{3/2}$($m_l$=+1) state are ionized by a 266 nm laser source, and
emitted electrons and Li$^+$ ions are momentum analyzed in a COLTRIMS
spectrometer. The excellent resolution achieved in the present experiment
allows not only to extract the relative phase and amplitude of all partial
waves contributing to the final state, it also enables to characterize the
experiment regarding target and spectrometer properties. Photo-electron angular
distributions are measured for five different laser polarizations and described
in a one-electron approximation with excellent agreement.
