Introduction Since formation of metal nanoclusters is thermodynamically unstable and difficult to control, in this work it has been explored the in-situ growing of either MnS or FeS nanoclusters in the interlayer space of a bentonite by means of a pretty short process taking only around 12 h. The interlayered polynuclear sulfidized metal clusters were prepared by cationic exchange of either Mn 2+ or Fe 2+ on the bentonite previously interlayered/pillared with aluminium under different conditions. These metal sulfidized nanomaterials have attracted substantial interests due to their unique optical and electrical properties and wide variety of potential applications in electroluminescence 1 and nonlinear optical devices 2. Since the main physical and optical properties of such metal sulfides primarily depend on their shape and size, the immobilization of metal sulfide nanoparticles in a spatially confined environment is a way to control the photo-physical and photo-chemical properties which result in very interesting strategy of morphological control
