High-Pressure phase transition in67ZnO

Using a high-pressure Mossbauer spectrometer for the 93.3-keV resonance in67Zn and an X-ray diffractometer of the Guinier type67ZnO powder was investigated at pressures up to ≈19% at the phase transition. Surprisingly, the center shift (CS) of the cubic phase is by ≈20μm/s more negative than CS of the wurtzite structure. The Mossbauer data as well as theoretical cluster calculations show that the volume collapse is mainly due to the increase in coordination number of nearest-neighbour (nn) atoms. Covalency of the Zn−O bond, however, is reduced due to a≈7% increase of nn distance.