Probing chemical disorder in glasses using silicon-29 NMR spectral editing.

Chemical disorder can be characterized in silicate glasses using spectral editing in (29)Si solid-state NMR. Resonances of the Q(n)(mX) (i.e. Si(OX)(m)(OSi)(n-m)) molecular motifs, which strongly overlap in the (29)Si solid-state NMR spectra of silicate glasses, can be separated and quantified using 2 to n-quantum filters in INADEQUATE-like experiments, without prior knowledge of assigned chemical shifts, offering a new probe for the microscopic origins of residual entropy in glassy materials.