Novel polydiacetylenes for optical materials: beyond the conventional polydiacetylenes

Polydiacetylenes (PDAs) are of great interest due to their pi-conjugated backbone related properties, such as linear and nonlinear optical properties. As a consequence, design and preparation of PDAs assume enormous importance today. This review deals with one aspect of PDA, that is, design and preparation of the diacetylene monomers and their polymers, PDAs having conjugated side groups. The aim of such an investigation is to produce materials which exhibit large third-order nonlinear optical susceptibilities and which consequently, can be obtained in a form to be customised for optical devices.