AbstractHydrogen is known to be present as an impurity in amorphous oxide semiconductors at the 0.1% level. Using amorphous ZnO as a simplified model system, we show that the hydrogens pair up at oxygen vacancies in the amorphous network, where they form metal-H-metal bridge bonds. These bonds are shown to create filled defect gap states lying just above the valence band edge and they are shown to give a consistent mechanism to explain the negative bias illumination stress instability found in oxide semiconductors like In-Ga-Zn-O (IGZO).