Preparation and nonlinear optical properties of novel Y-type polyesters with highly enhanced thermal stability of second harmonic generation

3,4-Di-(2′-hydroxyethoxy)benzylidenemalononitrile (3) was prepared and condensed with terephthaloyl chloride and adipoyl chloride to yield novel Y-type polyesters (4–5) containing 3,4-dioxybenzylidenemalononitrile groups as NLO-chromophores, which constituted parts of the polymer main-chains. The resulting polymers 4–5 are soluble in common organic solvents such as acetone and N,N-dimethylformamide. They showed thermal stability up to 300 °C in thermogravimetric analysis with glass-transition temperatures obtained from differential scanning calorimetry in the range 89–91 °C. The second harmonic generation (SHG) coefficients (d33) of poled polymer films at the 1064 nm fundamental wavelength were around 2.47 pm/V. The dipole alignment exhibited high thermal stability even at 10 °C higher than Tg, and there is no SHG decay below 100 °C due to the partial main-chain character of polymer structure, which is acceptable for NLO device applications.