The nexus of mechanical and optical behavior of materials is one of the least explored areas of materials science. And yet, there are lots of interesting stories to be unravelled here! The following is one among them.
Eu doped Na0.5Bi0.5TiO3 (NBT) is an efficient emitter of red light. In such optical materials, both electrical means or light based excitation can be used to elicit visible light (red, in this case). Eu atom is the light emitter in this material. When Eu in NBT is increased beyond a certain point, a saturation of emission intensity is observed. At this doping level, we also find a restoration of elastic modulus (to undoped values)!! This concurrent effect is used to develop a simple model (we call it the "phase segregation model") which is helpful in explaining the observed intensity saturation.
(paper accepted in "Solid State Communications". Please write to me, if you wish to have a copy of the same)
