The situations of the peaks in the correlation function indicate the interatomic distance that is evidenced with high probability. It is similar to the X-ray diffraction (XRD) diagram. The edged peaks are for crystal type, while Gaussian shapes are for the amorphous form. In order to appreciate the bond lengths of Zn-Zn, Zn-O, and O-O, firstly, the effects of low pressure (0-30 (GPa)) secondly, the effect of high-pressure (40-400 (GPa)) on those bonds as mentioned in the following Sections, Part I and II; these bonds lengths also can be used as a new approach to deduce the phase transition comparing with the literature value of the phase transition’s pressure.
I. Under Low Pressure
Under the temperature of 300 K and the range of pressure 0-30 (GPa), we estimated the bond lengths, , SE, SD, the maximum of peaks and its relationship with the bond length of
ZnO rocksalt type(B1), and the percentage of variation of those bonds Zn-Zn, Zn-O, and O-O from the RDF.
Figure 1 shows the RDF of Zn-O of B1 type under the range of pressure 0-30 (GPa) and at 300 (K). Under 25 GPa and 30 (GPa), the probability to find an atom near the origin is more than that under the range of 0-2 (GPa). Higher peaks show higher probability, and low peaks show low probability. The original atom is at the origin, for a distance more than the cutoff of 12 (Å), there are no significant peaks due to neglected interatomic interactions; however, between 2 Å and 12 (Å), the probability is significant.
It is noted that under 25 (GPa) and 30 (GPa), there are similar values of
g(
r) and identical atomic distances because of the similar structure of rocksalt [
30,
31,
43,
44,
45,
46,
47,
48]. Further, under very low pressure 0-2 (GPa), there are similar values of
g (
r) and bonds lengths because the same type of Wurtzite (less than 2(GPa) there is a transition from rocksalt to wurtzite) [
30,
31,
43,
44,
45,
46,
47,
48]. Also, under both pressure of 25 (GPa) and 30G Pa, the probability to find an atom near from the origin is more than that under the range of 0-2 (GPa).
The correlation function of O-O bond under low pressure at the temperature of 300 (K) is displayed in
Figure 2. It is noted that the peaks of
g(
r) under 25 (GPa) and 30 (GPa) are higher than those under the range of pressure 0-2 (GPa), which means more probability to find an atom near from the reference. Also, the length of the bond O-O is more than that of Zn-O, due to the weak potential and the difference in distance between two atoms of Oxygen in the unit cell. The peaks of both bonds are edged that traduce the crystal phase.
The effect of temperature (300 (K)) and the pressure (0-30 (GPa)) on the Zn-Zn bond are exhibited on RDF curves in
Figure 3. The high and low peaks of the bond of Zn-Zn are similar to the bond of O-O because of no ionic and covalent liaison as Zn-O bond, also to nearby distance. It is observed that the structure in both figures is still crystalline since the peaks are sharped and not Gaussian.
From the previous curves presented in
Figure 1,
Figure 2 and
Figure 3, we can depict the behavior of
ZnO bonds lengths in
Figure 4. The length of Zn-O bond under 0 (GPa) is around 2.23 (Å), which tends to be 2.2 (Å) under 30 (GPa). It is bit linear on account of the strong kind of this chemical bond. While for O-O and Zn-Zn bonds that are larger than Zn-O, they have the same variation with exception under 25 (GPa). Further, O-O bond is tended to around 3.125 (Å); however, Zn-Zn bond dropped to 2.22 (Å) under the effect of pressure on account of the big distance between the cations of Zn
2+ and the weak potential. This diminution of length products a phase transition from Wurtzite to other structure of
ZnO [
47,
48].
The effect of pressure on ZnO bonds lengths can be displayed better in
Figure 5, where the percentages of variation for each bond of Zn-O, Zn-Zn, and O-O are shown.
These curves of Zn-O, Zn-Zn, and O-O bonds lengths and those percentages of variation are linear and bit neighbors (
Figure 5); however, they are similar, only for Zn-Zn bond under 25 (GPa), which is jumped to around 35.2 %, while the rest of bonds tend to around 5.1 %, because of the phase transitions under low and high pressure [
30,
31,
43,
44,
45,
46,
47,
48]; wurtzite(B4), rocksalt (B1), zinc blend(B2), PbO(B10), ΝaTi(B32), WC(B
h), BΝ(B
k), ΝiAs(B8
1), and AsTi(Bi) are the different types of ZnO. The energy of these phases areaccording to the following order (LDA and GGA); EB4 ˂ EB3 ˂ EB
h˂ EB1˂ EB
i˂ EB81˂ EB1˂ EB10˂ EB2˂ EB32, with B4 is the most stable (under low-pressure) and B32 is less stable at equilibrium. While B2 is stable under high pressure (phase transitions B4 to B1 to B2 phase transition [
47,
48]. There are other intermediate phases from B4 to B2 phase with B
k, B
h, , B10, and B8
1 structures [
47,
48,
49,
50] see
Figure 6 and
Figure 7; B
k phase is stable only under the range of 24.65-32.85GPa.there is another phase transition from B
k to B1 to B
i to B2 under the range of 16.56- 213.30(GPa). It is noted that B2 phases has never been observed experimentally, due to the challenging of high-pressure 250 (GPa) [
51].
The bonds lengths of
ZnO under different pressures can be used as a sign of phase transition; for each phase transition there is a known value of pressure (see
Table 1), and for this value of pressure, there is a bond length, so from this length and the percentage of variation, the phase transition can be deduced.
In order to understand the relation between the bonds lengths and the probability to find an atom near the reference or the total neighbors,
Figure 8 is presented.
The RDF dropped and raised under the range of pressure 0-5 (GPa). Indeed, the rocksalt is transferred to Wurtzite at less than 2 (GPa), and at more than 2 (GPa) the material is returned to rocksalt [
22,
23,
24,
25,
26,
27,
28,
29,
30,
31,
32,
33,
34,
35,
36,
37,
38,
39]. The
g(
r) values of Zn-Zn and O-O are more important than that of Zn-O because they are affected by the pressure. This is due to the weak potential comparing with that of ionic –covalent of Zn-O; however, under 25 (GPa), there is another phase transition with different parameters of unit cell [
22,
23,
24,
25,
26,
27,
28,
29,
30,
31,
32,
33,
34,
35,
36,
37,
38,
39]. The precision of these calculations can be extracted from the value of the SE and the SD (see
Figure 9).
The SE of Zn-O, Zn-Zn, and O-O bonds are linear, similar, and minimum under the range of pressure 2-30 (GPa). However, in the area of phase transition from rocksalt to Wurtzite and under 0-2 (GPa), the SE increases from around 0.1 to 1.1 in the Wurtzite phase, and later it drops to the starting value for rocksalt phase; indeed, SE of O-O bond is decreased from 0.5 to 0.1, SE of Zn-Zn raises from 0 to 0.1, and for O-O bond it is bit straight on 0.1 value. However, the SD is more than SE for all
ZnO bonds, as they are linear and bit increasing with augmenting the pressure, while for Zn-0 bond it is raised more. It is shown that under the range of 0-2 (GPa) the SD dropped and raised [
22,
23,
24,
25,
26,
27,
28,
29,
30,
31,
32,
33,
34,
35,
36,
37,
38,
39].
II. Under high-pressure
The RDF of Zn-O bond under high-pressure (40-400 (GPa)) and the temperature of 300 (K) are shown in
Figure 10,
Figure 11 and
Figure 12.
The peaks in
Figure 10,
Figure 11 and
Figure 12 have approximately the same height; however, the distance from the origin atom is reduced. This means that the numbers of neighbor atoms are augmented, where the peaks are more condensed from far distance to the nearest one even if they are still edged as a crystal structure. Also, reducing the distance between the atoms of Zinc (
Zn) and the atoms of oxygen (
O), it increases the probability for finding neighbor atoms.
For the behavior of RDF of the bonds of O-O and Zn-Zn under the range of pressure 40-400 (GPa) and at 300 (K) is bit the similar but different than that of Zn-O because of the different potentials and distances between those atoms, see
Figure 13,
Figure 14,
Figure 15,
Figure 16,
Figure 17 and
Figure 18.
For the first neighbor, we can summarize the RDF of
ZnO (B1) versus distance of the cutoff in
Figure 19 where the distance between the pairs of Zn-O, Zn-Zn, and O-O are calculated.
To determine the values of affected pressure on
ZnO (B1) bonds lengths,
Figure 20 shows the percentage of variation of each bond. The percentage of variation of Zn-O bond is less than that of Zn-Zn and O-O bonds due to the high chemical bonds, while the weak one between the other bonds make the percentage of variation bit similar. For Zn-O, it is started from around 6% and it is ended at around 26%, while that for Zn-Zn it is 7% and 32% under 400 (GPa), whereas it is 8% under 40 (GPa) and 33% for O-O bond.
In order to analyze the previous peaks of RDF,
Figure 21 exhibited the maximum of the RDF versus the pressure (40-400 (GPa)). It is observed that in
Figure 18 the black color of peak (400 (GPa)) and the red one (350 (GPa)) are reduced under high-pressure: that decreases the probability to find an atom near the reference one each time when the position of a neighbor atom becomes farther, which is clear in
Figure 21. The maximum of RDF of O-O and Zn-Zn have the same variation due to approximately the same distance and the same potential, while the RDF of Zn-O pair is less reduced under high-pressure because of the strong liaison and the atoms become close to each other due to the high pressure. It is noted that the peaks in
Figure 21 interpreted the phase transition existence [
30,
31,
43,
44,
45,
46,
47,
48]. Rocksalt phase is stable under high pressure up to 209 (GPa) at room temperature, Liu et al. [
51]. At pressure around 260 (GPa) there is a phase transition from the B1 to the eight-fold- coordinated B2 structure [
51,
52,
53,
54], in other hand Zaoui and Sekkal [
36] predicted the transition at 305 (GPa). However, most of theoretical studies did not consider any other intermediate structures of
ZnO on high-pressure, except B4 (wurtzite), B3(Zinc blend), B1(rocksalt), and B2, while Azzaz et al. [
53] predicted other types such as cinnabar, d-ß-tin and
NiAs, also Li et al.[
54] investigated a tetragonal
PbO-type(B10) as intermediate phase. B2 (
CsCl) phase has never been observed experimentally around 250 (GPa) [
51].The knowledge of the bond length of ZnO or its percentage of variation for each pressure will be a tool of deducing each kind of phase transition, see
Table 2.
Radial distribution function versus the pressure shows the probability to find an atom near from the reference; this probability is proportional with the RDF, increases and decreases with RDF as mentioned in
Figure 21. However, the probability to find an atom of Zn (or Oxygen) near from Oxygen (or Zinc) is more than that of Oxygen-Oxygen and Zinc-Zinc, where the both last one are similar. The neighbors of Zn-O are more than that of Zn-Zn and O-O atoms.
As a general result, to evaluate the precision and accuracy of our calculations under high-pressure,
Figure 22 offers the SE and SD of
ZnO (B1) bonds; it seems that the SE of Zn-O, O-O ad Zn-Zn have the same values under the range of 250-400 (GPa), while there is it difference under the range of 40-250 (GPa), this due to the phase transitions. For the SD of Zn-Zn and O-O have the same behaviours, however Zn-O standard deviation is more than that of the rest of bonds but is similar. We can conclude that the SE of
ZnO (B1) bonds are less than that of SD; this maybe due to the short distance of Zn-O bond. Also under low pressure there is a great gap between the value of SE ad SD, while under high pressure, they try to converge to the same value because of the deformation of the structure.
In order to understand the relation between the neighbors’ number of
ZnO pairs and the pressure,
Figure 23 clarifies that.
The number of neighbors of Zn-Zn bond is increased under the range of 0-5 (GPa) because of the reverse phase transition from rocksalt to wurtzite, so the parameters of unit cell will change; it is noted that the neighbors number are increased with pressure for all
ZnO pairs, however, the Zn-Zn and O-O pairs have a bit the same behavior of neighbors number under 0 -25 (GPa) due to the same parameters of unit cell, while under 30-200 (GPa), O-O bond neighbors number are increased more than Zn-Zn neighbors because of the phase transition of ZnO structures [
47,
48]. Under the range of 200-260 (GPa) both
ZnO pairs (Zn-Zn and O-O) have the same value because of the same structure, since that under 260-300 (GPa), the number of Zn-Zn neighbors is 19 atoms, while O-O pairs is dropped to 14 (another type of
ZnO).