1. indeed it is a bit weird.
your script looks fine and you save only two DeviceConfiguration objects in your Ph-Au_GO.nc file.
If I have to guess you ran the same job 8 times
in this case nlsave "appends" the configurations and does not overwrite the file.
maybe you run in parallel with the wrong setup and you are actually running 8 different jobs?
do you have a log file?
2. you can include a Stress analysis at the end of your optimization.
0.05 eV/Å**3 could be too high. try to decrease.
Also, you save a trajectory file Ph-Au_GO_trajectory.nc
what if you check this trajectory?