The study of neutral and ionized clusters has developed rapidly due to the unique capability of this state of matter to bridge the gap between isolated gas and condensed phase. Recently, a considerable interest has been developed in production of metal atoms pure and complexed with different systems in order to study the formation of nanostructures. The results of spectroscopic studies of clusters of metals with L-amino acids are here reported. The formation of stable L-tyrosine-aluminum cluster in a supersonic beam expansion of a laser ablated L-tyrosine and Al target has been observed. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.