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Before striking gold in gold-ruby glass

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The chemistry of the magic ingredient in this ancient glass is no longer a mystery.

Abstract

The red colour of gold-ruby glass is caused by small particles of metallic gold that form when the gold-containing colourless glass is annealed. But the chemical state of the gold before striking red has been a mystery — is it dissolved in the glass as individual neutral gold atoms, like a frozen-in metal vapour that precipitates on annealing1, or as gold cations that must be reduced before the metallic clusters can grow and impart the lustrous colour2,3? Here we use Mössbauer spectroscopy to show that this gold is monovalent in the colourless glass, forming linear bonds to two neighbouring oxygen atoms.

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Figure 1: The Lycurgus Cup dates from Roman times.

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Figure 2: 197Au Mössbauer spectra of quenched (left) and annealed (right) gold-ruby glasses measured at 4.2 K with a source of 197Pt in 196Pt metal.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Physik-Department E15, Technische Universität München, Garching, 85748, Germany

    F. E. Wagner & S. Haslbeck

  2. Dipartimento di Chimica Fisica, Università "Ca' Foscari", Calle Larga S. Marta 2137, Venice, 30123 , Italy

    L. Stievano & S. Calogero

  3. Department of Physics and Astronomy University College London, Gower Street, London , WC1E 6BT, UK

    Q. A. Pankhurst

  4. F. X. Nachtmann Bleikristallwerke GmbH, Riedelhütte, 94566, Germany

    K. -P. Martinek

Authors
  1. F. E. Wagner
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  2. S. Haslbeck
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  3. L. Stievano
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  4. S. Calogero
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  5. Q. A. Pankhurst
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  6. K. -P. Martinek
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Wagner, F., Haslbeck, S., Stievano, L. et al. Before striking gold in gold-ruby glass. Nature 407, 691–692 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/35037661

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