Cracking the Secret of Kanazawa Gold Leaf’s Brilliant Texture

Kanazawa gold leaf, one of the world’s thinnest metallic foils and a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage, owes its brilliance and durability to an unusual deformation mechanism. A team led by Professor Yoshifumi Oshima at JAIST discovered that non-octahedral {110}–<110> slip systems, normally inactive in gold, are activated during the traditional hammering process. This finding provides a scientific foundation for sustaining cultural heritage while inspiring new approaches to advanced nanomaterials and ultrathin metallic films.