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January 24, 2009 |
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Commodity Online
NEW DELHI: And you thought if you heat gold it will become softer! Then new research has found out that if you heat gold it becomes harder.
According to reports, University of Toronto researchers have shown that if you heat gold it becomes harder. It is counter-intuitive but the gold got harder instead of softer, said the researchers.
The researchers heated the gold at terrific heating rates greater than 1 billion million degrees per second that approach the temperature of the interior of stars.
In the journal Science, the researchers revealed that the gold was heated at rates too fast for the electrons absorbing the light energy to collide with surrounding atoms and lose energy.
This means the electrons are on average further away from the atomic nucleus and there is less screening of the positive nuclear charge by these heated electrons.
The bonds between atoms actually got stronger, the researchers said. A gold crystal consists of gold ions and weakly bound electrons which screen the repulsive forces between the ions.
In contrast to many other materials, heating the electrons in gold with an ultra-short laser pulse makes the forces between the ions stronger, resulting in a harder lattice with an increased melting point.
The effect of bond hardening in gold has been theoretically predicted.
The researchers employed a technique called femtosecond electron diffraction to make the observation, and record the atomic motions of the ions in real time while heating the material with lasers.
By measuring the speed of heating, amplitude of the atomic motions, and ultimate melting of the crystal, the laser-induced change of the lattice stability could be inferred.
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