Abstract
Lanthanide nanoclusters ligated by planar organic molecules have one-dimensional sandwich structures and are air/moisture sensitive. To investigate their optical properties, originating from the lanthanide elements, for novel nanodevices, we preserved the nanoclusters with a cyclo-olefin polymer as a gas barrier. The technique enabled us to conduct various spectroscopic analyses without oxidation of the samples, such as fluorescence microscopy, photoluminescence, and X-ray absorption fine structure determination, thus revealing that lanthanide sandwich nanoclusters containing europium (Eu) atoms exhibit orange fluorescence attributed to divalent Eu2+.