World's Largest Gold Crystal Studied at Los Alamos
Abstract
When geologist John Rakovan needed better tools to investigate whether a dazzling 217.78-gram piece of gold was in fact the world's largest single-crystal specimen - a distinguishing factor that would not only drastically increase its market value but also provide a unique research opportunity - he traveled to Los Alamos National Laboratory's Lujan Neutron Scattering Center to peer deep inside the mineral using neutron diffractometry. Neutrons, different from other probes such as X-rays and electrons, are able to penetrate many centimeters deep into most materials. 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 Sven Vogel and Heinz Nakotte 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.
- Authors:
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1167035
- Resource Type:
- Multimedia
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 36 MATERIALS SCIENCE; GOLD; SINGLE CRYSTAL; HIPPO; NEUTRON DIFFRACTOMETRY; LOS ALAMOS
Citation Formats
Vogel, Sven, and Nakotte, Heinz. World's Largest Gold Crystal Studied at Los Alamos. United States: N. p., 2014.
Web.
Vogel, Sven, & Nakotte, Heinz. World's Largest Gold Crystal Studied at Los Alamos. United States.
Vogel, Sven, and Nakotte, Heinz. Thu .
"World's Largest Gold Crystal Studied at Los Alamos". United States. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1167035.
@article{osti_1167035,
title = {World's Largest Gold Crystal Studied at Los Alamos},
author = {Vogel, Sven and Nakotte, Heinz},
abstractNote = {When geologist John Rakovan needed better tools to investigate whether a dazzling 217.78-gram piece of gold was in fact the world's largest single-crystal specimen - a distinguishing factor that would not only drastically increase its market value but also provide a unique research opportunity - he traveled to Los Alamos National Laboratory's Lujan Neutron Scattering Center to peer deep inside the mineral using neutron diffractometry. Neutrons, different from other probes such as X-rays and electrons, are able to penetrate many centimeters deep into most materials. 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 Sven Vogel and Heinz Nakotte 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.},
doi = {},
journal = {},
number = ,
volume = ,
place = {United States},
year = {Thu Apr 03 00:00:00 EDT 2014},
month = {Thu Apr 03 00:00:00 EDT 2014}
}