New research, conducted at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, illuminates the strange behavior of gold when zapped with high-energy laser pulses.
When certain materials, such as silicon, are subjected to intense laser excitation, they quickly fall apart. But gold does the opposite: It becomes tougher and more resilient. This is because the way the gold atoms vibrate together—their phonon behavior—changes.
"Our findings challenge previous understandings by showing that, under certain conditions, metals like gold can become stronger rather than melting when subjected to intense laser pulses," said Adrien Descamps, a researcher at Queen's University Belfast who led the research while he was a graduate student at Stanford and SLAC. "This contrasts with semiconductors, which become unstable and melt."
For decades, simulations hinted at the possibility of this phenomenon, known as phonon hardening. Now, using SLAC's Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS), the researchers have finally brought this phonon hardening to light. The team has published their results in Science Advances.
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