Growth, optical, and luminescence characterization of LiCsMoO4 crystal

• A LiCsMoO 4 single crystal was grown with a conventional Czochralski technique. • Crystal structure, optical and luminescence properties of the crystal are reported. • The material is cubic structure and the optical energy band gap is 4.2 eV. • The emission spectrum at 14 K shows peaks at 1.79, 2.22, and 2.99 eV. • The luminescence light yield at 14 K increased by ∼ 3.3 times compared to 300 K. A crack-free LiCsMoO 4 crystal was grown with the conventional Czochralski technique. The optical properties of the crystal show it transparent well in the visible region. The luminescence properties of the crystal were studied from 300 to 14 K under the excitation with a 280 nm light-emitting diode (LED). At room temperature, the luminescence light yield is low; however, it increases significantly at low temperatures. The decay time of the crystal is measured under the excitation of the crystal with the 280 nm LED source. The decay times at all the temperatures are fitted with three exponential functions. The average decay time from 300 to 14 K varies from 6.7 to 8.6 μs. A thermoluminescence (TL) study of the crystal was carried out from 9 to 300 K. Three TL peaks are found between 165 and 250 K. This study shows that the developed crystal has a potential application in search of neutrinoless double-beta decay of 100 Mo at cryogenic temperatures.