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

Chemical disorder can be characterized in silicate glasses using spectral editing in 29Si solid-state NMR. Resonances of the Qn(mX) (i.e.Si(OX)m(OSi)n−m) molecular motifs, which strongly overlap in the 29Si 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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]