Scientists crush gold at 10 million times Earth pressure to reveal new structure

Researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) have conducted groundbreaking experiments compressing gold to pressures around 10 million times that of Earth's atmosphere, the highest-pressure structural measurements ever recorded for this metal. Using precisely timed laser pulses at the National Ignition Facility and the OMEGA EP Laser System, the team rapidly compressed gold samples while maintaining relatively low temperatures to keep the metal solid. They then employed ultrafast X-ray diffraction to capture atomic-scale snapshots of gold’s crystal structure under these extreme conditions, providing unprecedented insight into how gold behaves at pressures comparable to those deep inside giant planets. The study revealed that gold’s usual face-centered cubic (FCC) atomic arrangement remains stable up to about twice the pressure found at Earth’s core, which is higher than some previous theoretical predictions. Beyond this threshold, the researchers observed the emergence of a body-centered cubic (BCC) structure coexisting with the FCC phase, marking the first direct evidence of gold’s structural transition under such intense compression. This coexist