A gold leaf electroscope is a sensitive type of electroscope that consists of two gold leaves. It consists of a brass rod with a brass disk at the top and at the bottom, there are two thin gold leaves in the form of foils. In order to keep the rod in place, the rod travels through the insulator. The charges move from the disk to the leaves through the rod. At the lower portion of the jar, a thin aluminium foil is connected.

The aluminium foil is grounded with the help of a copper wire so that the leaves are protected from external electrical disruptions. Figure 4 shows the structure of a simple gold-leaf electroscope.

Applications of gold leaf electroscope
The gold-leaf electroscope is used to detect charge, identification of the nature of the charge, and identification of body as a conductor or an insulator.