Researchers Accidentally Create Unprecedented New Gold Compound

SLAC scientists created gold hydride in extreme lab conditions. The work sheds light on dense hydrogen and fusion processes.

By chance and for the first time, an international team of researchers led by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory succeeded in creating solid binary gold hydride—a compound composed solely of gold and hydrogen atoms.

The team had originally set out to investigate how hydrocarbons, molecules made of carbon and hydrogen,…