The high pressure behavior of optical phonons in wurtzite zinc oxide (w-ZnO) has been studied using room temperature Raman spectroscopy and ab-initio calculations based on a plane wave pseudopotential method within the density functional theory. The pressure dependence of the zonecenter phonons (E2, A1 and E1) was measured for the wurtzite structure up to the hexagonal→cubic transition near 9 GPa. Above this pressure no active mode was observed. The only negative Grüneisen parameter is that of the E low 2 mode. E1(LO) and (TO) frequencies increase with increasing pressure. The corresponding perpendicular tensor component of the Born's transverse dynamic charge e * T is experimentally found to increase under compression like e * T (P) = 2.02 + 6.4 • 10 −3 .P whereas calculations give e * T (P) = 2.09−2.5•10 −3 .P (in units of the elementary charge e, P in GPa). In both cases, the pressure variation is small, indicating a weak dependence of the bond ionicity with pressure. The pressure dependence of the optical mode energies is also compared with the prediction of a model that treats the wurtzite-to-rocksalt transition as an homogeneous shear strain. There is no evidence of anomaly in the E2 and A1 modes behavior before the phase transition.

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The elastic constants of GaN have been determined using Brillouin scattering; in GPa they are: C11=390,  C33=398,  C44=105,  C66=123,  C12=145,  and   C13=106. Our values differ substantially from those quoted in the literature which were obtained from the determination of mean square displacement of atoms measured by x-ray diffraction.

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