Thorium-Doped Lithium Fluoride Single Crystal: A Potential Promising Candidate for Solid State Nuclear Optical Clock Materials

The solid-state nuclear optical clock based on Th-229-doped crystal has great advantages in frequency stability, excitation and detection of nuclear transition, miniaturization, commercialization, and spaceborne ability of nuclear optical clock. Here, the potential of LiF crystal as a host for Th ions is predicted by theoretical calculation, and on this basis, the Th:LiF crystal is successfully grown experimentally for the first time. The theoretical results demonstrate that although the challenges of charge nonconservation and ion radius mismatch between Li+ and Th4+ ions exist, effective doping of thorium can still be achieved via energetically favorable charge compensation mechanisms in an F-rich environment, and the transmittance of Th:LiF crystal in nuclear transition band will only have a slight decrease, smaller than that of pure LiF crystal. The experimental results prove that the doping concentration of Th:LiF crystal can reach about 8.3 x 10(18) cm(-3) and the transmittances of 1 mm thick Th:LiF and pure LiF crystal samples grown in similar conditions are approximate to 68% and 72% at 152.7 nm, respectively. The Th:LiF crystal with high doping concentration, high transmittance, and low background luminescence is expected to be a promising candidate for solid-state nuclear optical clock materials.