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Zeitschriftenartikel:

P. Dessovic, P. Mohn, R. Jackson, G. Winkler, M. Schreitl, G. Kazakov, Thorsten Schumm:
"229Thorium-doped calcium fluoride for nuclear laser spectroscopy";
Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter, 26 (2014), S. 1054021 - 1054029.



Kurzfassung englisch:
The 229thorium isotope presents an extremely lowenergy isomer state of the nucleus which is
expected around 7.8 eV, in the vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) regime. This unique system may
bridge between atomic and nuclear physics, enabling coherent manipulation and precision
spectroscopy of nuclear quantum states using laser light. It has been proposed to implant
229thorium into VUV transparent crystal matrices to facilitate laser spectroscopy and possibly
realize a solidstate nuclear clock. In this work, we validate the feasibility of this approach by
computer modelling of thorium doping into calcium fluoride single crystals. Using atomistic
modelling and full electronic structure calculations, we find a persistent large band gap and no
additional electronic levels emerging in the middle of the gap due to the presence of the
dopant, which should allow direct optical interrogation of the nuclear transition.
Based on the electronic structure, we estimate the thorium nuclear quantum levels within
the solidstate environment. Precision laser spectroscopy of these levels will allow the study of
a broad range of crystal field effects, transferring M¨ossbauer spectroscopy into the optical
regime.
Keywords: nuclear clock, calcium fluoride, thorium isomer, thorium doping, nuclear
spectroscopy, VASP, GULP

Erstellt aus der Publikationsdatenbank der Technischen Universität Wien.