  A new concept for narrow-band direct nuclear laser spectroscopy of
$^{229\text{m}}$Th is proposed, using a single comb mode of a vacuum
ultraviolet frequency comb generated from the 7th harmonic of an Yb-doped fiber
laser system. In this concept more than $10^{14}$ $^{229}$Th atoms on a surface
are irradiated in parallel and a successful nuclear excitation is probed via
the internal-conversion (IC) decay channel. A net scanning time of 15 minutes
for the most recent 1~$\sigma$ energy uncertainty interval of 0.34 eV appears
to be achievable when searching for the nuclear transition. In case of
successful observation, the isomer's energy value would be constrained to an
uncertainty of about 100~MHz, which is a factor of $10^6$ of improvement
compared to today's knowledge. Further, the comb mode could be stabilized to
the nuclear transition using the same detection method, allowing for the
development of an IC-based solid-state nuclear clock, which is shown to achieve
the same performance as a crystal-lattice nuclear clock, however, with the
advantage of a drastically simpler detection scheme. Finally, it is shown that
the same laser system could be used to narrow down the isomer's transition
energy by further six orders of magnitude during laser excitation of
$^{229}$Th$^{3+}$ ions in a Paul trap and to drive nuclear Rabi oscillations,
as required for the development of a nuclear clock based on a single
$^{229}$Th$^{3+}$ ion.
