World's Largest Single Crystal Piece of Gold

Sofia Ağustos 02, 2021

Wondering what this is? It weighs 217.78 grams, is the size of a golf ball, and it is the largest single-crystal piece of gold ever found! The New Mexico–based Los Alamos National Laboratory, which studied and announced the find, estimates the piece’s value is $10,000—but given how big it is, it could fetch as much as $1.5 million.

The lab received the object from an Ohio scientist, who said a U.S. collector had it for decades and it was found in Venezuela.

It had apparently been a matter of curiosity for some time as to whether it was a single crystal or not. Proving it was a crystal would mean it was created entirely naturally – and increase its value. Researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory used a neutron scanner to effectively look inside the 217.78-gram piece of gold and were able to verify that it is a single crystal.

Revealing the inner structure of a crystal without destroying the sample—imperative, as this one is worth an estimated $1.5 million—would allow Rakovan and Lujan Center collaborators to prove that this exquisite nugget, which seemed almost too perfect and too big to be real, was a single crystal and hence a creation of nature. Its owner, who lives in the United States, provided the samples to Rakovan to assess the crystallinity of four specimens, all of which had been found decades ago in Venezuela.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2014-04-world-largest-crystal-gold-los.html#jCp

Neutrons, different from other probes such as X-rays and electrons, are able to penetrate many centimeters deep into most materials.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2014-04-world-largest-crystal-gold-los.html#jCp

Source: jckonline.com