Spectrally resolved lithium isotope quantification through high-resolution spatial heterodyne spectrometry

Isotope ratio determination of lithium is increasingly important in fields ranging from geochemistry to battery diagnostics. While mass spectrometry remains the gold standard, it is costly, cumbersome, and incompatible with portable or inline implementations. Optical emission spectroscopy presents an appealing alternative. However, it is traditionally limited by insufficient spectral resolution or resolving power to separate lithium isotope emissions due to their generalized designs for a wide spectral range; this often requires overly complicated algorithms to overcome the instrumental drawbacks. (79) RESULTS: Here, we report a high-resolution optical method for lithium isotope quantification using a custom-built spatial heterodyne spectrometer (SHS) combined with a reduced-pressure glow discharge source. This configuration yielded a resolving power of 189,000 and enabled baseline resolution of lithium d-line emission features even without the need for preliminary data processing. Despite the inherent low sensitivity of SHS, a detection limit of 30 pmol was achieved using a standard industrial camera. To improve quantitative accuracy, we introduced a deconvolution-based spectral lineshape recovery technique alongside a bootstrapping-based error propagation strategy. These methods facilitated robust isotope ratio calibration using both peak-height and peak-area metrics. The SHS platform additionally enabled the determination of relative transition probabilities, suggesting the feasibility of calibration-free operation. (118) SIGNIFICANCE: This work demonstrates the practical viability of SHS for high-specificity, high-resolution lithium isotope analysis. The approach is compact, potentially field-deployable, and adaptable to other elements with optically resolvable isotope shifts, offering a route toward accessible and calibration-free optical isotopic analyses. (40).