An experimentally consistent atomistic structural model of silica glass

Empirical potential structure refinement is used to build an atomistic model of silica glass based on neutron scattering data. This model is tested against X-ray diffraction and extended X-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) spectroscopy data to establish its local and intermediate range structural veracity. The chemical specificity of the silicon and oxygen K-edge spectroscopic information allows us to confirm that the neutron scattering derived model represents a reasonable representation of the three partial structure factors that are required to characterise this binary glass and subsequently give confidence in the Faber–Ziman and Bhatia–Thornton partial structure factors and pair distribution functions that are extracted from the model.