A novel tetranuclear neodymium complex was synthesized and dissolved into N, N-dimethylformamide. The molecular structure of the complex was characterized by single-crystal X-ray diffraction. Fluorescent resonance energy transfer theory was applied to investigate the optical properties of the sample. It was found that the quenching of Nd3+ excited state via O-H vibrational excitation could be nearly neglected and the cross-relaxation or excitation migration rate of the tetranuclear complex was only 1/16 times of the traditional mononuclear one. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.