We present theoretical studies of effects of the nonlinear elasticity and the electromechanical coupling on the optical properties of InGaN/GaN and AlGaN/AlN quantum wells. In these structures, due to the lattice misfit between constituents, the quantum wells are compressively strained and the intrinsic hydrostatic pressure is present. Therefore, the nonlinear elasticity is investigated by taking into account the pressure dependence of elastic stiffness tensor for the strained quantum wells. We

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... show that this effect leads to (i) decrease in the volumetric strain and (ii) increase in the polarization--induced built-in electric field in the quantum wells. Consequently, the interband transition energies in the quantum wells decrease when the nonlinear elasticity of nitrides is considered. On the other hand, we show that the effect of electromechanical coupling, i.e., co-existence of ordinary and converse piezoelectric effects results in increase in the interband transition energies in the considered quantum wells. It turns out that the influence of the nonlinear elasticity on the optical properties is stronger than the influence of electromechanical coupling for InGaN/GaN quantum wells, while for AlGaN/GaN the opposite situation is observed.