Local Vibrational Modes of Zn-H-P in GaP, InP and ZnTe

Abstract

We have investigated the hydrogenation of the zinc acceptor in GaP and InP, and of the phosphorus acceptor in ZnTe, by computer modeling. We used a density-functional supercell code and pseudopotentials to deal with the core electrons. However zinc 3d electrons were explicitly taken to be valence electrons. We have determined the relaxed atomic geometry for seven hydrogen sites. We have found that, in the lowest total energy configuration, hydrogen sits in a bond centered position between zinc and arsenic atoms in all GaP, InP and ZnTe semiconductors and is bonded to the phosphorus atom. We found metastable states, by 0.4, 0.4 and 0.5 eV, for structures where H is antibonding to the phosphorus atom for GaP, InP and ZnTe, respectively. The calculated local vibrational modes (LVM) for the bond-centered configuration agree, within 1%, with the experimental values of 2379.0 cm-1 for GaP:Zn-H, 2287.7 cm-1 for InP:Zn-H and 2193 cm-1 for ZnTe:P-H. The isotopic shift due to the replacement of deuterium by hydrogen is reproduced by less than 2.5% using experimental data. The decrease in the LVM when going from GaP to ZnTe, as the perfect bond length increases, is also well-reproduced. A wag mode at 496 cm-1 and lower LVM, a doublet at 329 cm-1 and a singlet at 242 cm-1, are predicted for P-H in ZnTe.