Reduction of heating rate in a microfabricated ion trap by pulsed-laser cleaning

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 355 nm. The effect of the laser pulses at several energy density levels has been tested by measuring the heating rate of a single (40)Ca(+) trapped ion as a function of its secular frequency omega(z). A reduction of the electric-field noise spectral density by similar to 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 up the way to better control of the electrode surface quality in ion microtraps.