  The discovery of long bonds in gold atom chains has represented a challenge
for physical interpretation. In fact, interatomic distances frequently attain
3.0-3.6 A values and, distances as large as 5.0 A may be seldom observed. Here,
we studied gold chains by transmission electron microscopy and performed
theoretical calculations using cluster ab initio density functional formalism.
We show that the insertion of two carbon atoms is required to account for the
longest bonds, while distances above 3 A may be due to a mixture of clean and
one C atom contaminated bonds.
