In bionanotechnology, intrinsic properties of the clusters (for example, fluorescence) can be made available for bionanotechnological applications by linking them with biomolecules through the process of bioconjugation. The protected gold particles' stability and fluorescence makes them efficient emitters of electromagnetic radiation that can be tuned by varying the cluster size and the type of ligand used for protection. The protective shell can function (have functional groups added) in a way that selective binding (for example, as a complementary protein receptor of DNA-DNA-interaction) qualifies them for the use as biosensors.