High-purity gold wires were resistively heated and quenched in a pure argon gas at pressures of up to 6kbar. Quench rates of 104 to 5 x 104C/s were obtained. The logarithm of the quenched-in resistance decreased linearly with increasing pressure at a constant temperature of 600C. From these data, a formation volume of 0.52 atomic volumes was derived; was assumed to be associated with the formation of single vacancies. For atmospheric pressure quenches from below 725C, Arrhenius plots of the quenched-in resistivity for various quenching temperatures yielded an average formation energy for single vacancies of 0.93eV.

Vacancy Formation in Gold under High Pressure. H.H.Grimes: Journal of Physics and Chemistry of Solids, 1965, 26[3], 509-16