If you look at the periodic table, and focus on the last few elements, you will discover the lanthanide and actinide elements. We specialize in using lanthanides in designing and making novel optical materials. The lanthanide element we chose for this project is Europium (Eu).
Eu has an interesting feature - it can either lose 2 or 3 electrons, to become a positively charged ion. Whether it loses 2 or 3 electrons depends upon the chemical environment we choose for the Eu atom. Typically stabilizing Eu in the +2 state is hard, since it would rather lose all 3 of its outermost electroncs. Hence in order to arrest Eu in its +2 state, we put it in competition against Cr in a material called CaAl2O4. In this situation, when the synthesis parameters are appropriately chosen, we not only arrest Eu in its 2+ state using an open-air process, we also get remarkably good blue luminescence from the system! The best blue luminescence was seen when a combination of fuels (called ODH and urea) were used in 1:5 ratio. The material we made compares favorably with the most popular commercial blue phosphor (called BAM: Eu2+).
Ref: Chemical Engineering Journal, Volume 267, 1 May 2015, Pages 317-323
