Local relaxation in lanthanum silicate oxyapatites by Raman scattering and MAS‐NMR

To characterize the local relaxation in the structure of lanthanum silicate oxyapatite materials, six compositions with different cation and oxygen stoichiometries (La8Ba2Si6O26, La9BaSi6O26.5, La10Si5.5Mg0.5O26.5, La9.33SiO26, La9.67SiO26.5 and La9.83Si5.5Al0.5O26.5) were investigated by combining Raman scattering and 29Si and 27Al magic‐angle spinning nuclear magnetic resonance (MAS‐NMR) spectroscopies. Only [SiO4]4− species were evidenced and the hypotheses of [Si2O7]6− and [Si2O9]8− entities were ruled out. Both oxygen excess and cation vacancies induce local distortions in the structure, which leads to nonequivalent [SiO4]4− species, characterized by different 29Si MAS‐NMR signals and by splitting of Raman signals.