Conductivity and Third-Order Nonlinear Optical Measurements of Polymers with Distyrylbenzene and Diphenylbutadiene Segments

New polymers were synthesized with discrete conjugated hydrocarbon segments alternating with flexible spacer groups. These processable polymers were designed for third-order nonlinear optical and conductivity studies for comparison with “fully-conjugated” polymers. The present materials contain distyrylbenzene or diphenylbutadiene units and have the advantages of solubility and melt processibility over “fully-conjugated” systems such as poly (acetylene). They were found in degenerate four-wave mixing experiments to have third-order optical susceptibilities in the range of 3 × 10⁻¹² esu. These values are within an order of magnitude of the χ⁽³⁾ value reported for unaligned poly(phenylenevinylene). Electrical conductivity measurements using I₂ and H₂SO₄ dopants, however, provided materials with conductivities from 2 × 10⁻⁵ to 7 × 10⁻⁵ × 10⁻⁵ S/cm, far lower than poly(phenylenevinylene).