Broad-band light-emitting radiation-induced F₂ and F₃⁺ud electronic point defects, stable and laser-active atudroom temperature in lithium fluoride crystals and films, find applications in dosimeters, tuneable color-center lasers,udbroad-band miniaturized light sources and in novel radiation imaging detectors. A brief review of theirudphotoemission properties is presented, and their peculiarities at liquid nitrogen temperature are discussed. A fewudexperimental results about optical spectroscopy and fluorescence microscopy of these radiation-induced pointuddefects in LiF crystals and thin films are presented to obtain information about the coloration curves, the pointuddefects formation efficiency, the effects of the photo-bleaching processes, and so on. The control of local formation,udstabilization and transformation of radiation-induced light-emitting defect centers is crucial for the developmentudof optical active micro-components and nanostructures. Some of the advantages of low temperatureudmeasurements for novel confocal laser scanning fluorescence microscopy techniques, widely used for the spatialudmapping of these point defects thorough the optical reading of their visible photoluminescence, are highlighted.
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