Highly Charged Ions Melt Nano Gold Nuggets

© ucyborg.com/studio Tiny structures made of gold can be specifically manipulated by ion bombardment at TU Wien (Vienna) - surprisingly, the decisive factor is not the force of the impact. Normally, we have to make a choice in physics: Either we deal with big things - such as a metal plate and its material properties, or with tiny things - such as individual atoms. But there is also a world in between: The world of small but not yet tiny things, in which both effects of the macroscopic world and effects of the microscopic world play a role. The experiments conducted at TU Wien are located in this complicated in-between world: Extremely small pieces of gold, consisting of a few thousand atoms and with a diameter in the order of ten nanometres, are bombarded with highly charged ions. This makes it possible to change the shape and size of these gold pieces in a targeted manner. The results show: What happens in the process cannot simply be pictured like the impact of a golf ball in a sand bunker - the interaction of ion and gold piece is much more subtle. Energy transferred by ion bombardment.