Noblest of all metals is structurally unstable at high pressure

In a series of experiments in externally electrically heated diamond anvil cells we demonstrate that at pressures above similar to 240 GPa gold adopts a hexagonal-close-packed structure. Ab initio calculations predict that at pressures about 250 GPa different stacking sequences of close-packed atomic layers in gold become virtually degenerate in energy, strongly supporting the experimental observations.