Gold clusters and gold nanoparticles have been shown to have very interesting and promising electronic, optical and catalytic properties.^1–3  These properties are very useful for several applications in diverse fields as for instance in biomedicine (e.g. sensing and labelling), nanoelectronics, photonics, sensing and catalysis.^1–4  Whereas the term cluster describes a particle with a well-defined number of atoms which usually is smaller than 3 nm in size, the term nanoparticle covers all particle sizes, but a particle larger than 1 nm in size up to 100 nm is meant. The number of atoms plays no crucial role for the nanoparticle, but instead the nanoparticle shape, for example visualised by a Wulff construction which determines the crystal shape in the thermodynamic equilibrium. The crystal shape is constructed in such a way that the free energy of the surface is minimised by having a constant volume.