Hydrocarbon cracking and carbon contamination of optical elements in soft X-ray spectrometers and synchrotron radiation beamlines is a severe problem. Carbon contamination seriously affects the optics performance. In the present work, an Nd:YAG laser providing 2 mJ of pulse energy and 100 ns of pulse duration has been used for carbon cleaning experiments. The laser cleaning is a non-contact, accurate, efficient and safe process. A surface area of 48 cm(2) having similar to 20 nm thick carbon layer on gold surface has been removed with six number of laser passes and with 80% laser spot overlapping without any change in surface roughness of the underneath gold film. Effect of laser beam on gold film after carbon removal has been analyzed using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, soft X-ray reflectivity techniques. Atomic force microscopy was used to analyze surface morphology before and after laser cleaning process. Power spectral density function was calculated over large frequency range of 10(-1) to 10(-4) nm(-1) to understand topographic data. (c) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.