In this paper, rare earth ion Nd doped LiLuF4 (LLF) microcrystals were prepared by hydrothermal method. The phase analysis, morphology analysis of the crystals were performed and near infrared optical properties were studied. LLF crystals belong to the scheelite structure of tetragonal system and the space group is I41/a. The LLF microcrystalline materials prepared by hydrothermal method have good crystallinity and the particle size is about 20 μm. The oxygen content of the optimized Nd∶LLF sample is 0.001 4% (mass fraction). Under excitation of 792 nm wavelength, the main fluorescence emission peak of 3% (mole fraction) Nd-doped LiLuF4 microcrystal is located at 1 047 nm, which belongs to near infrared bands, and its fluorescence lifetime is about 0.275 1 ms. Furthermore, Nd∶LLF crystal was grown by the Czochralski method and its laser performance was evaluated. The emission cross section of Nd∶LLF crystal at 1 053 nm is 8.13×10-20 cm2. The laser performance test and analysis show that under the excitation power of 1.2 W, Nd∶LLF crystal obtains a near-infrared laser output of 0.123 W at 1 053 nm.