Although great efforts have been made to explore the exquisite rare-earth (RE) clusters, the design and construction of planar RE clusters with disk-like geometrical features are still scarce. Herein, a novel disk-like RE-cluster Y12 (abbreviated as 1), formulated as [Y12(L)10(CO3)4(NO3)2(μ3-OH)6] (H2L = 7,7′-(2-methylmethylene)bis(8-quinolonol)) was synthesized successfully under solvothermal conditions. Owing to the template effect and fruitful coordination modes of NO3−, a novel Y2⊂Y10 type structure with dual-core in the center position of the cluster, which distinguishes it from the traditional brucite-type disk-like RE-cluster was achieved. Based on the ESI-MS analysis, the possible assembly mechanism of Y5 → Y8 → Y12 is proposed. The luminescence investigation illustrates that this cluster not only shows green emission in solid-state and common organic solvents but also has obvious electroluminescent performance, which can be used as the emitting layer in organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs).
