RECENT PROGRESS IN THE SYNTHESIS AND APPLICATIONS OF PORPHYRIN-CONTAINING POLYMERS AS ELECTRONIC AND PHOTONIC MATERIALS

Porphyrin and its derivatives play very important roles in many biological systems. They are also found to exhibit interesting electronic and optical properties, such as photoconductivity and nonlinear optical properties. Currently, the synthesis of polymers containing porphyrin moieties, mostly main-chain porphyrin-containing polymers, is an active area of research in polymer chemistry. These polymers are expected to possess interesting properties with good processability. For example, the conjugated porphyrin polymer has been shown to have enhanced third-order nonlinear optical properties when compared to the corresponding monomer; photorefractive polymers with porphyrin-polyimide linkages exhibited very large photorefractivity and exceptionally high thermostability. In this paper, the recent progress in this area is briefly reviewed.