Tuning Photoluminescence Response by Electric Field in Electrically Soft Ferroelectrics

We show that an electrically soft ferroelectric host can be used to tune the photoluminescence (PL) response of rare-earth emitter ions by external electric field. The proof of this concept is demonstrated by changing the PL response of the Eu^{3+} ion by electric field on a model system Eu-doped 0.94(Na_{1/2}Bi_{1/2}TiO_{3})-0.06(BaTiO_{3}). We also show that new channels of radiative transitions, forbidden otherwise, open up due to positional disorder in the system, which can as well be tuned by electric field.