By Kris Harris
New inorganic materials are so valuable because of the interesting functionalities that exhibit. Often, the desired function originates in the interplay between various components of a complex and heterogeneous material. Quite often, it is disorder, intermolecular bonds, and/or specific local dynamics that play the critical role in the materials’ operation. The key to new technologies is therefore likely to be found in successfully quantifying and then controlling these characteristics; fortunately, solids NMR spectroscopy is naturally adapted to exactly this class of properties. This seminar will focus on extracting information on local structure and dynamics in disordered and heterogeneous inorganic materials using solids NMR spectroscopy, with a particular focus on active components from lithium-ion batteries. A novel polarization-transfer scheme that shows improved efficiency over Hartmann-Hahn CP will also be presented, together with a tutorial on the new method and the adiabatic pulses used therein.