Characterization of surface structures of dealkalized soda lime silica glass using X-ray photoelectron, specular reflection infrared, attenuated total reflection infrared and sum frequency generation spectroscopies

Abstract This paper reports a comprehensive spectroscopic characterization of soda lime silica (SLS) glass surfaces with various thermal histories and dealkalization chemical treatments. While many studies have investigated elemental composition changes after dealkalization treatments, the work reported here focuses on identification and quantification of the associated structural changes in terms of non-bridging oxygen (NBO), bridging oxygen (BO) and hydrous species (Si OH and H 2 O). X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) was used to determine the average areal densities of BOs, NBOs, and OH groups at the top 10 nm of the surface. Specular reflection infrared (SR-IR) spectroscopy was used to probe the Si O Si asymmetric stretch vibration mode of the silicate network of the top