[1] Small amounts of aluminium, gallium, or iron were used as catalysts for the transport process to obtain the I-AuBr modification.

The two structures both consist of -Br-Au-Br-Au-Br- polymeric zigzag chains, but they are stacked in a different arrangement.

In the primitive tetragonal I-AuBr, the chains form layers (see figure) in contrast to the body centered P-AuBr, where they are more interwoven.

Density functional calculations on the monohalides of group 11 (Cu, Ag, Au)[2] have tried to shed light on the question why gold halides form rather different, low symmetry structures rather than the cubic zinc blend or rock salt structures of the silver and copper halides.

It was shown that this calculation technique accurately predicts which structure type should be stable.