In this study, silica-based organic-inorganic hybrids were prepared by the sol-gel method. Tetraethoxysilane (abbreviated as TEOS) and a kind of monomer (abbreviated as FA-APES) derived from modified 2-furancarboxylic acid (abbreviated as FA) with (3-aminopropyl)triethoxysilane (abbreviated as APES) were used as the inorganic and organic fragments, respectively. Coordination reaction between lanthanides (europium and terbium ions) and -C=O group of the monomer happened simultaneously. And after days of aging process the resultant materials showed characteristic luminescence of lanthanides. The enhancement of luminescence can be seen by the comparison with simply doped lanthanide hybrid systems. And it can be explained by the coordination ability of the organic counterpart. IR, NMR, UV-vis absorption, low-temperature phosphorescence spectroscopy and fluorescence spectroscopy were applied to characterize and the above spectroscopic data revealed that the triplet state energy of organic ligand matches with the emissive energy level of lanthanides (especially of Tb3+). (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.