Photoconductive Detection of Tetrahedrally Coordinated Hydrogen in ZnO

In this Letter we apply an innovative experimental approach, which allows us to improve the sensitivity of detecting local vibrational modes (LVMs) even in highly absorbing spectral regions. This photoconductive technique allowed us to confirm a recent suggestion of a new multicenter bond for hydrogen in ZnO [A. Janotti and C. G. Van de Walle, Nature Mater. 6, 44 (2007)]. The two LVMs of the hydrogen substituting oxygen in ZnO are identified at 742 and 792 cm(-1). The modes belong to a nondegenerated A(1) and a twofold degenerated E representations of the C-3v point group. The tetrahedral coordination of the hydrogen atom is the result of a newly detected multicenter bond for defects in solids.