Belfast University scientists, using femtosecond lasers, discovered gold becomes harder and stronger at extreme temperatures, contrary to expectations, and requires more energy to reach its melting point.

A team of scientists, led by a university in Belfast, have discovered secrets about gold through a series of ground-breaking experiments. In the experiments, high-intensity lasers were used to heat gold to extreme temperatures in order to observe the effects at the atomic level. Contrary to expectations, gold became harder and stronger past a certain heat threshold rather than melting. This required increasingly more energy to push the gold to its melting point. The femtosecond lasers used in the experiments operate on microsecond timescales.

February 13, 2024
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