In the last few years, there has been a very strong interest for nano-sized metal clusters because of their potential tecnological application as quantum dots for future nano-eleclronic devices (e.g., room temperature single-electron transistors) [1]. Nano-sized metal crystals, coated by a self-organized alkanethiol monolayer, show a quantum dot behavior [2]. In particular, gold clusters passivated by thiols are interesting materials since they are stable to oxidation and moisture contamination and can be obtained by simple chemical synthesis. The number of available chemical routes for the synthesis of these cluster compounds are still limited. At present, the most common process is the biphasic reduction of hydrogen tetrachloroaurate by aqueous sodium borohydride in presence of a toluene-alkanethiol solution, however, this approach may allow control over the metal core size only in the range 1-5 nm [3, 4].
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