Mapping the nanoparticle-coating monolayer with NMR pseudocontact shifts

Lanthanide ions Yb3+ and Tb3+, once bound to the monolayer of organic molecules coating the surface of gold nanoparticles, induce pseudo-contact shifts on the signals of nearby nuclear spins. This not only allows the investigation of the average structure of the ligands in the monolayer but also the mapping of the position of organic molecules bound to it.